In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Doug Smith interviews Jesse Cole, Founder of Fans First Entertainment and Owner of the Savannah Bananas. You are in for a treat with this power-packed episode. Enjoy!
About Jesse Cole
Jesse Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas.
His teams have welcomed more than one million fans to their ballparks and have been featured on MSNBC, CNN, ESPN and in Entrepreneur Magazine.
The Bananas have been awarded Organization of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Business of the Year and won the CPL Championship in their first year. Fans First Entertainment has been featured on the INC 5000 lists as one of the fastest growing companies in America.
The Savannah Bananas currently have sold out every game since their first season and have a waiting list in the thousands for tickets.
Jesse released his first book “Find Your Yellow Tux – How to Be Successful by Standing Out” in January of 2018 with a World Book Tour…at Epcot.
Cole has been featured on over 500 podcasts and is an in-demand keynote speaker all over the country sharing the Fans First Experience on how to stand out, be different and create raving fans of both customers and employees.
Cole is the Host of the Business Done Differently Podcast and has interviewed over 100 of some of the world’s leading entrepreneurs, authors and speakers.
Fun Fact: Cole owns seven yellow tuxedos and proposed to his wife Emily in the yellow tux in front of a sold out crowd. She said Yes! The two later married at their stadium. In 2018, they welcomed their first baby banana, Maverick
Six Key Takeaways
1. Jesse talks about the crazy journey of turning around the Savannah Bananas baseball team around and creating the incredible culture and success that exists in the organization today.
2. What makes you different? Hardest question to answer. A litte bit “er” is not enough. What are you the ONLY one doing? That’s what you need to answer! That’s how you need to stand out.
3. Businesses have business plans and marketing plans, but do they have ATTENTION plans? How are you getting people’s attention?
4. Serve over Sell! Entertain and add value before you try and sell someone a product. Here’s the best marketing advice... Stop marketing! Don’t ask how you can make money tomorrow, but how you can serve your people!
5. Jesse talks about his 3M Philosophy. Moments - Matter - Meaning. Create moments that show people that they matter so that they sense deeper meaning.
6. Jesse talks about the importance of Entertainment. Provide enjoyment and amusement. How are you entertaining? You can entertain -bring joy - no matter what you do!
Quotes
“Great leaders are people who share constantly and don’t care what people think.” -Jesse Cole
“As a leader, give yourself permission to be a little bit scatterbrained.” -Jesse Cole
Links
How to Find Your yellow Tux by Jesse Cole
In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Doug Smith interviews Jesse Cole, Founder of Fans First Entertainment and Owner of the Savannah Bananas. You are in for a treat with this power-packed episode. Enjoy!
About Jesse Cole
Jesse Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas.
His teams have welcomed more than one million fans to their ballparks and have been featured on MSNBC, CNN, ESPN and in Entrepreneur Magazine.
The Bananas have been awarded Organization of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Business of the Year and won the CPL Championship in their first year. Fans First Entertainment has been featured on the INC 5000 lists as one of the fastest growing companies in America.
The Savannah Bananas currently have sold out every game since their first season and have a waiting list in the thousands for tickets.
Jesse released his first book “Find Your Yellow Tux – How to Be Successful by Standing Out” in January of 2018 with a World Book Tour…at Epcot.
Cole has been featured on over 500 podcasts and is an in-demand keynote speaker all over the country sharing the Fans First Experience on how to stand out, be different and create raving fans of both customers and employees.
Cole is the Host of the Business Done Differently Podcast and has interviewed over 100 of some of the world’s leading entrepreneurs, authors and speakers.
Fun Fact: Cole owns seven yellow tuxedos and proposed to his wife Emily in the yellow tux in front of a sold out crowd. She said Yes! The two later married at their stadium. In 2018, they welcomed their first baby banana, Maverick
Six Key Takeaways
1. Jesse talks about the crazy journey of turning around the Savannah Bananas baseball team around and creating the incredible culture and success that exists in the organization today.
2. What makes you different? Hardest question to answer. A litte bit “er” is not enough. What are you the ONLY one doing? That’s what you need to answer! That’s how you need to stand out.
3. Businesses have business plans and marketing plans, but do they have ATTENTION plans? How are you getting people’s attention?
4. Serve over Sell! Entertain and add value before you try and sell someone a product. Here’s the best marketing advice... Stop marketing! Don’t ask how you can make money tomorrow, but how you can serve your people!
5. Jesse talks about his 3M Philosophy. Moments - Matter - Meaning. Create moments that show people that they matter so that they sense deeper meaning.
6. Jesse talks about the importance of Entertainment. Provide enjoyment and amusement. How are you entertaining? You can entertain -bring joy - no matter what you do!
Quotes
“Great leaders are people who share constantly and don’t care what people think.” -Jesse Cole
“As a leader, give yourself permission to be a little bit scatterbrained.” -Jesse Cole
Links
How to Find Your yellow Tux by Jesse Cole
[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Well, Hey, podcast, family, and welcome to episode number 273 of the L three leadership podcast, where we're obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host. And today's episode is brought to you by my friends at bear tongue advisors. If you're new to the podcast, welcome, I hope you enjoy our content. And I hope that you'll become a subscriber. And if you've been with us for a while, welcome back, and I thank you for being a listener and it would mean the world to me. If you would leave a rating and review on whatever app you listen to podcasts through, uh, that helps us grow our audience organically. So thank you in advance for that today, you were in for a treat. You were going to hear my interview with Jesse Cole, otherwise known as the yellow tux guy. And I actually stumbled upon Jesse through LinkedIn. A few of my friends were liking and sharing some of his content and I started following him and loved what I saw. And so I reached out for an interview and got it. And you know, I've done hundreds of interviews and I can say that by far by far, this was the most high energy interview I've ever done. Uh, I thought I was high energy and then I met Jesse and, uh, he just blew my mind and he's a lot of energy. He is a lot of fun, but he also has a ton of wisdom. And I think that you're just going to hear so many things, uh, that you can practically apply to your life in this interview that you're just gonna fall in love. And so let me just tell you a little bit about Jesse. Before we dive into the interview. Uh, he is the founder of fans, first entertainment and the owner of Savannah bananas. That's right. And you'll hear more about that in the interview. His teams have welcomed more than 1 million fans to their belt ballparks and have been featured on MSNBC, CNN, ESPN, and in entrepreneur magazine. The bananas have been awarded organization of the year entrepreneur of the year business of the year and won the CPL championship in their first year. Fans. First entertainment has been featured on the Inc 500 list is one of the fastest growing companies in America. The Savannah bananas currently have sold out every game since the first season, and they have a waiting list in the thousands for tickets. Jesse released his first book, find your yellow tux, how to be successful by standing out in January of 2018 with a world book tour at Epcot core has been featured on over 500 podcasts. And as an in-demand keynote speaker all over the country, sharing the fans first experience on how to stand out, be different and create raving fans for both customers and employees. Cole was the host of the business, done differently podcasts and has interviewed over a hundred of some of the world's leading entrepreneurs, authors and speakers. And he owns seven yellow tuxedos and proposed to his wife, Emily and the yellow tux in front of a sold out crowd. She said, yes. And the two later married at their stadium and in 2018, they were welcomed at their first, the baby banana Maverick. And I don't often read people's full bio, but it was just fun to read that. And I literally, I can't wait for you to listen to this interview, but before we dive into it, just a few announcements. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by bear tongue advisors, the financial advisors at bear tongue advisors, help educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can out how bare tongue advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website at bear tongue advisors, that's B E R a T U N G advisors.com securities and investment products and services offered through Waddell and Reed, Inc member FINRA, and SIPC bear tongue advisors, Waddell and Reed and LTB leadership are separate entities. I also want to thank our sponsor Henny jewelers, my wife, Lauren, and I got our engagement and wedding rings at Henny jewelers. And we just fell in love with the experience that we had and fell in love with them as jewelers. In fact, what we really love about them is they give every engaged couple of books to help invest in their future marriage. And we just absolutely love that their owner, John has become a friend and mentor in my life, and I can't say enough about them. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out Henny jewelers.com. And with all that being said, let's dive right into the interview. Here's my interview with Jesse Cole, the yellow tux guy, Jesse, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, I'm very excited for this just by the energy that you brought in the last three minutes as we've talked. Um, so why don't we just start off with you just telling our audience a little bit about who you are and what,
Speaker 3:Yes. Well, thank you. Doug might have to be with you guys. Uh, yes, I am a crazy guy in a yellow tuxedo. I own a baseball team. That's more like a circus. Uh, I have an amazing wife who started this with me and I actually proposed it in front of a sold-out crowd in the yellow talks to her. And she actually said, yes. Uh, and we're still married and yes, we have a, uh, we have a young son and foster daughter now. And, uh, yeah, basically we, we realized it was a huge problem in baseball. It's too long, too slow, too boring. And I took over the worst team in the country when I was 23 years old. Uh, there were only 200 fans coming to the games,$268 in the bank account and they were failing and I realized we can't be a baseball team. So we said, let's what if we had our players do choreographed dances? What if we had grandma beauty pageants? What if we did flatulence fun nights? So moved to underwear nights, pregnant nights, we started trying everything and people started coming and that first team ended up selling out games. And we said, let's take on a bigger adventure. And we decided to buy an expansion franchise and go down to Savannah, Georgia. And we went there, uh, back in 2015 and proceeded to fail miserably for six months. And that's where the story started. And I can keep going or just go from you, but it was a crazy, brutal, terrible failure for the first six months. And then we learned a few things along the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I, I definitely wanna dive into that and I guess you can kind of guide us along the timeline. I want you to first start, obviously, if people are watching this, if you're not, Jessie's wearing a bright yellow tux with a yellow top pad. It's awesome. Tell us about that. What's the story behind that? Or is that part of the story you're about to hear?
Speaker 3:So yeah, if it, well, before I get into Savannah yeah. With our first team in Gastonia, um, we were failing, I had no idea what to do. So I read every book about PT, Barnum and Walt Disney. And they're my two biggest mentors. I have posters of them right here and quotes that guide me with what I was doing. You know, what would PT Barnum do? What would Walt Disney do with your failing baseball team? At the lowest level of baseball guys were college, summer baseball. It's not like major league or AAA or a double way or high a it's college, summer baseball. So we had to get interesting. So with PT, Barnum, I said, we can no longer be a baseball team. It's going to be more of a show. Well, if I'm going to be running the show, I can't be dressed with like a polo and a regular t-shirt. So I called my buddy who owns a bridal formal shop. And he, he gave me a black tuxedo that first game with tails and a top hat. And, uh, it was 101 degrees and I almost melted. And I was like this and not, this is not going to work. So I went online and found bright colored tuxedos.com who had actually exists. And I bought a yellow tuxedo for$44 and 95 cents. And it got it shipped overnight, put it on the next game. And fans started taking pictures and it just, it, it caught on. And so I became the yellow tux guy. And whenever I give speeches and I wrote my book, find your yellow tux, how to be successful by standing out. And that's kind of guided our whole thing. And more than anything, Doug, it gives permission to our people to have fun and not take themselves too seriously. I mean, business is too serious. It needs to be fun. And if your owner's dressed up in a yellow tuxedo, how can you not have a little bit of fun? So that's the yellow tux story.
Speaker 2:Wow. That's incredible. So you wrote a book about how to stand out and we live in a world that everyone's craving attention, right? And it's so hard to stand out. There's so many things I need to be on Instagram. I need to be on every platform. What have you learned about standing out? Cause clearly you have included. You're doing a good job with that.
Speaker 3:Well, ask this question. You can ask yourself and ask the business and I'd actually write it down right now. Anybody, what makes you different? And that is the hardest question for anybody to answer. And what most people do is they write, well, we're a little bit cheaper. We have a better price. We're a little early. Or if you're a little bit early, like better, faster, cheaper, you're not different. What are you the only one doing? And so we had to stand out. We had to be dramatically different. So we had to figure out what are we the only one doing? So we asked that question over and over again. And now we have a page of about 20 things. We're the only one doing because when you don't have any money, which I came to Gastonia and literally I couldn't pay myself for three months. Then we came into Savannah. I'm about to get into that failure where I'm sleeping on an air bed. We had no money. We had to create something so different. So remarkable. So unforgettable that people could tell everyone about us, do the marketing. And that's where the essence. And I guess that's also kinda what the yellow tux stands for. You know, people might not know my name, but they know there's a yellow tux guy. If you go on Google and search yellow talks, you're going to find me like, you're not going to necessarily find like a yellow tux. You'll see me. And so that whole mindset of what makes you different. Every business in the world has marketing directors. They have a marketing plan, but how many have an attention plan? What are we doing to create attention, to be dramatically different? And we had to build that because we had no other choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So talk about when you took over the Savannah bananas, you bought this franchise expansion, you said the first six months were an absolute failure and extremely tough. And then tell us the rest of the story.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. Talk about if you could like Savannah banana should not exist today. Like they should not, I should not be wearing this yellow tuxedo. I could be. You don't feel position crying somewhere. Like that's really where we should be because here's what, here's what happened. We went to Savannah and my wife and I, we just got married and we went from zero debt to$1.8 million in debt. And when you're, I was 31 years old at that point, she was 28, not a great start to a marriage, not dark, not at all. And so we took on that outrageous debt between we had bought the gas on your team, the former team, we bought the Savannah team. And then we had to put money into the team because we had a, what a cast of characters to start. We had a 24 year old president and three 22 year-olds out of college. This was our staff. We were going to take over Savannah. And so we shot that first day and the former team. Now, granted there was professional baseball in Savannah for 90 years, literally Hank, Aaron, babe, Ruth, Lou Garrick. They all played at the stadium and there was professional baseball. The New York Mets affiliate was there, but no one came to the games. They were getting a couple hundred fans because they were just to buy a baseball team. And they said, the city of Savannah, we want a brand new$40 million stadium. And the city's like, we're not going to build you that you can't get 40 faint. What are you talking about? So they left and they weren't too happy about it. So they cut the phone lines, they cut the internet line. So when we showed up, there was no office, no equipment, nothing left at the ballpark. We walk into an abandoned storage building and there's nothing there we look around and said, well, I guess this is it. And imagine these three 22 year olds to 24 year olds, like, did I just take on this job? So we got picnic table out from the park is we're at a park. And we put it in the office. We grabbed our cell phones and we started calling the community and saying, we're here. And they're like, who are you guys? Wait, you're not even professional your college. Can we even drink beer at the games people had, like, it was bad. Three months in, we sold two total tickets to, it was like a donation. They were like, here you go, guys. We feel bad for you. We sold two total tickets by January. And I'll never forget the date. January 15th, 2016. I'm at my best friend's wedding. My college roommate's wedding in New Jersey with my wife. I got a phone call from one of our staff members at four 45 on a Friday. Uh, Hey guys, um, we just overdrafted the account. Uh, we have payroll coming up and we have no money. And then we looked at me, what do we do? And so we went to that wedding and when we faked kind of danced and we got back in the car, we drove back and she turns to me and says, Jesse, we have to sell our house. We have no other options. Talk and talk about an amazing wife. We just got married two months ago. And she's like, we're going to do, we had our dream house in Charlotte. I mean, it was awesome. I put a hot tub in there. We had a fire pit, we had outdoor TV. It was like, perfect. It's like, we got to sell our house. So we sold our house. We empty out our savings account, the little money that we had, we put into the team to cover payroll for the next couple of weeks, hope that we could. And, uh, we went down to Savannah. We found this place that was falling apart. And guys I've taught. If you could picture the worst house in the world. Times that by 10, I walked in, I walked in and I immediately walked out and I said, Nope, no way. No. So we bought it and we went there and we couldn't afford better. So we just got an air bed. There's actually a picture. NPR did a big story. And we, they asked for pictures, we sent this one picture to be saved. It was just an air bed in the corner. And it was so gross. We had to sleep with our socks on because the floors were disgusting. And uh, that's, that's where it was just five years ago. And so we had to do something from there to get dramatically different, to get attention and then to get the hearts of the fans. And so that's where we were. And now, unfortunately, we're, uh, we're much further along now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So just a question. I mean, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that, that go after their dreams, but if they had something like that happen, we're just throwing the towel. Why didn't you quit?
Speaker 3:What did they say? You burned the boats. We had no other options, guys, what else are we going to do? We just bought this team. You know? And I think there's something to be said about that. You know, I think the best thing that we had for us is we didn't have resources. You know, if you want to be resourceful, live without resources, you know, you think of all those people that get a big inheritance check or they get money or they get this funding. They have all this money to play with. Well, they don't learn how to grind. We had no other options. We had to find a way to make this successful or we had nothing. And so I think sometimes that's the best thing that can happen. I mean, Walt Disney, I would say the biggest person I look up to. I mean, he's mortgaged his life, numerous times, snow white and seven doors put everything into it to try to make that work. Then Disneyland sold his house. He got a loans on it. I mean, he went all in and because this is where he's going. And I think we need to be able to do that more. And to me, what's the worst thing happened. It doesn't work. Uh, yeah, we're out of money. We start over, but I don't even think like that. I felt what would happen if it did work. And so that's why I told ourselves, we just got to believe and we believed in it because we saw in Gastonia, it could be successful. We saw thousands of people coming to a ballpark to watch players dance and to watch all the shenanigans. So we knew we could work. We just had to get the eyes and ears of Savannah. We had to get their attention before we could get their hearts. And the hearts is where you really win, but it's hard to get the hearts at first. You have to really show them and earn their hearts. And we had to earn that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And how did you do that? So you went from that place of like, Hey, we hope this works. Let's go for it. What happened over the next six years to get you to where you are today?
Speaker 3:So the first thing is we had to create unbelievably unbelievable tension. So we didn't name the team contest. First of all, the name of our company is fans. First entertainment. Our mission is fans. First entertain, always literally every decision we ask as a fans first, the name of our company before that was team call and associates. That sounds like a terrible law firm or accounting office. It's like Tim Cohen, associates. Can we help you? What a terrible name, name, your company, after who you are and what you stand for fans first entertainment with our mission. And then so we said, all right, that's who we are. Well, we got to get, come up with a name that can embody more who we are as well and get the attention. So we had a name, the team contest, and we said, specifically, we want things that are different dramatically, crazy, something outrageous. And we proceeded to get 99.9% normal names, sailors, ports, anchors like silly, not even good names. And then one woman Lynn Moses suggested bananas. That was it. And uh, we looked at each other. We said, could we have a senior citizen dance team called the banana nanas? Yeah. Could we have a male cheerleading team called the man? Anna's yeah. Could our mascot be named split? Could we have promotions where we throw bananas from the top deck and people catch them in their pants and it's called banana and the pants, could we do music videos too? Can't stop the peeling. And we just started, kept going down that road could go bananas, be our whole chin. We said, this is it. And we said, we're going to get criticized like you read about, but we'll get attention. And so we did two days of training before the announcement on February 25th of what to say, when people say they hate the name and we came out February 25th and people that know the week before we had our first shipment of t-shirts delivered to the stadium. And there were too many ends in bananas. Bananas was spelled wrong. Our first 200 t-shirts we couldn't even use all right. We were failing on every level. So finally, February 25th, 2016, we announced the name. And this is all covered in the Savannah bananas story documentary, which is, is, uh, it was really well done. And uh, so we sh we announced the name and all of a sudden, it's like a mix of like cheers, boos, confusion people got, you know, and then all of a sudden on social media, you guys are an embarrassment to the city. You'll never sell a ticket, leave our town. Now this has got to be the biggest failure. Bananas. Why would you name the ripped apart? But then Emily comes over. She goes, Jesse, look at this. And we were number one, trending on Twitter. I'm like, what is happening? It's like, so national we're trending on Twitter. Then all of a sudden, the today show ESPN, everyone starts reaching out. We're like, this is big. And she's like, Jessie merchandise is going crazy. And she's like, Oh no, Oh no. Oh no. And I'm like, what's happening. She's like Jessie, you know, we're charging$5 shipping. But every four orders is out of the country and Australia, the UK, New Zealand, and it's all over. I'm like, we're going to lose our, everything on this. So we ended up doing thousands of orders. And, uh, luckily that helped us get out from having no money because we don't merchandise. And locally, we were ripped apart, but people knew who we were. And so once they knew who we were, we started creating that tension. And we started saying, this is what we're going to do with the banana. So we're going to have every ticket, all inclusive. You can come to our game. And every ticket includes all your burgers, your hot dogs, or chicken sandwiches, your soda, your water, your Pokorny dessert, everything for$15. And people are like, no way. I'm like yes, way. And they're like, I'm like, do you know how to do that? I'm like, not at all, but I think it's a good thing. And we're going to try to do it. And so we announced all this in the first game, uh, it's sold out and people came and with poured and rain, it was pouring rain. The game that started till nine o'clock. We had the banana nanas dance for like an hour on the field, in the rain, which was very, very funny to watch. And we had the players come out of a trolley and I looked up at nine o'clock and not one fan had left. They stayed in the pouring rain. People were wearing banana costumes. One guy shaped his beard like a banana. They were, it was unbelievable. And the game stayed till 12 and we played terrible guys. His first game, we made six errors. I mean, it was bad. And the guys were in green uniforms because we're not quite ripe. So we had to wear green uniforms for opening night. So they weren't quite right. And at the end of the night, they left. After that game, every game proceeded to sell out. They told everyone about the experience about how we had free smores at the game. We had, uh, our banana pep band, our break-dancing first base coach. They talked about the experience and fast forward, five years later, we've sold out every single game and have a list for tickets in the thousands, uh, even at a pandemic. So, and now my wife and I have a real bed, so we've come full circle.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's amazing. What does that, I'm just curious. How did the players respond
Speaker 3:At first? What the heck did I sign up for now? How can I get on your videos? So right now we have more followers on Tik TOK than any major league baseball team. Right? Right. Now we have 400,000 followers on talk. Um, we do music videos, like old town road. Can't stop the peeling bananas or back that have millions of views, hundreds of thousands on Facebook. And, um, so they want to be in this because they get a boost in popularity as soon as they, and when they go on in town, you know, I can't say this cause it's NCA, but they don't have to buy food drinks or haircuts or anything because the community pays for it because they're looked on a celebrity. So now, and now we have a professional team and we're taking the show on the road and we have guys coming from all over the country and we're doing a professional, a new team, but that's a whole nother story. Guys just came from all over to have a chance to play for the band. So at first it was a disaster. But now because of the media attention, it's become a cooler thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So where do you see most organizations missing? And when it comes to marketing, it's standing out because clearly you've crushed the competition. I mean, if more followers than the MLB, that's pretty impressive
Speaker 3:Serve oversell. So for instance, you know what I hate when I hate we don't, if you watch our posts, look at how many times we just entertain. We offer value. We offer brand and we offer things that I ever offers value to our fans. So you talk about wanting to be the best marketing advice, stop marketing. You know, let's give me, give me a point here this past year on February 25th. All right. You want to hear our February 25th, 2020. You want to hear the worst business idea plan. Let's throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? Before a pandemic hits. That's the worst business plan. How do we do it? We said, we're going to create the first ever ad free stadium. So we eliminated all advertising from our ballpark, all sponsorship, everything threw away. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Five days later, we surprised our team with a trip to Disney. And then, so we're in Disney in March 5th, one week later, pandemic world shuts down. It was one of the best decisions we've ever made. We throw away hundreds of thousands of dollars, not a million, but getting up there, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now our merchandise, we increased by a hundred to 200% per month. Like for instance, we're in March right now, we passed what we did last March. On the second day, people from all over are buying and merchandise is becoming a seven figure brand just because people believe in who we are and what we do. And we don't try to sell merchandise. We entertain our fans and we don't do things that fans hate market to them. Sell to them, advertise them. We have no shipping fees on our merchandise. We have no ticket fees, no convenience fees. Everything's all inclusive. It's fans first. It's who we are. So you have to play the long game. We're focused on long-term fans over short term profits. If you want to be a good marketer, stop focusing on the short-term profits. What can I put up today to make money tomorrow? No. What can you put out today to create fans for tomorrow? You change the conversation, change the game you win in the long run.
Speaker 2:That's incredible. Now you're clearly a great marketer, but also to accomplish what you've done. You've had to obviously be a great leader as well. What have you learned about leadership throughout this whole journey?
Speaker 3:I've learned more from our team. So love your customers more than you love your product for us more, love your fans more than you love your products, but love your people more than you'd love your customers. And every single company has core beliefs, but you have stories that back them up right here. This is, this is our fans. First playbook. We give this to anybody before they join our team on the back says be patient and what you want for yourself, but being patient and how much you give to others. Everything we do is about how do we give our team? We do our love language tests. So we literally know here's a funny story. So we did love language, our whole full-time staff. And what I realized for this, you guys know the love languages. It's like, yeah. You know, affirmation, quality time, physical touch, cheers. Um, I'll get to it. Um, so, so we do it for our whole team and we find one that's just staggering above everyone else. My wife, by the way, is acts of service. You know, she's an owner with us. She does everything together, a big part. And so what I did is I actually went online and bought her a custom acts. And I wrote, I got service inscribed on it. So I gave her a sub service.
Speaker 2:She didn't think that was that funny,
Speaker 3:Beautiful, but our president, Jared, who's amazing and sends a leadership memo to the team inspiring every single week. Uh, he was, uh, he was top of the line of words of affirmation, but bottom on, uh, on, uh, touch, physical touch. And he said, tell me, you love me, but don't you ever touch me is what you hold. And so what we learned is everyone on our team was top of the line of words, of affirmation, every everybody. And so I remember our director of operations coming to me after, after a season. And I said, Hey, Jordan, what was your best memory of this past season? And I we've done crazy things. We taken our team on cruises. We've got a, day's going to be just do it. Have a great parties events. He goes, Jesse. It was after our first concert. And you came up to me and patted me on the shoulder and said, great work today, Jonathan, I'm proud of you. He goes, that was my best moment of the year. And it was simply just telling him that he mattered. And so when you talk about leadership, what we say is 3m moments matter, meaning, create moments that show people that they matter, and that will provide them deeper. Meaning because nothing matters more than making people feel like they matter. If you want to be a great leader, show your people that they matter every single day, don't catch them doing things wrong, catch them doing things, right? And so I've learned this from some great leaders in every day. I challenge our president, who are we recognizing today? Who are we acknowledging before every single staff chat, every meeting, every talk, it begins with recognition. We praise publicly. Like you read about, we have a shoutout, a message forum on our teams every day. You'll see shout outs from our team. We constant, constantly recognized. And when we have to give criticism, we do it individually. One-on-one no one needs to be criticized in front of a bunch of people. We need to praise publicly, make people feel good, make people feel like they matter and give people purpose every single day. That's the job of a leader. And that's what we're aspiring to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Clearly a bit of great culture internally as well. I'm just curious. What are some things you do week to week to develop that culture and sustain the culture and make sure that the culture doesn't get ruined by a toxic employee, et cetera.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So again, everything starts with your, your core beliefs and your mission. So pans first and our core beliefs always be caring, different, enthusiastic, fun, growing and hungry. We follow the alphabet, keep it simple for our team. Always be caring, different, enthusiastic, fun, growing, and hungry. And so we recognize those core beliefs on a weekly basis. And part of one thing that we do is you gotta make sure that your team is growing for us the way we hire you. If you wanna get hired with us, you have to do a fan's first essay on how you fit our core beliefs. Then you have to do a video cover letter because we want to see, can you interact? Do we actually get enthusiasm from talking to you? And number three, we want to see a future resume. We don't care about what you did in the past. We want to know what you want to do in the future. So with this future resume, we can tell right away, are they growing? Are they hungry? If they say, I want to be the account executive for the next six years, you aren't growing my friend, you aren't hungry. We want you to go take on the world in three years, five years. And so we can tell that from right away. So that's how we start the process of hiring. And what we have is we have a full vision of where we are going. And we share this. Every staff chat that we have every week, we have someone from our team read our vision. We wrote in a vision and held us. How does accountable? We're doing some crazy stuff. It's on our website, the 20, 25 vision. We're going to be playing year round or me taking the show on the road. We're doing things that don't make sense. We're but we have our team read it. And the vision starts with two pages solely about our team. It's about our team, how we're going to have surprises and delights for them constantly going to set the gold standard for benefits, how we're going to recognize them. And they read that. And I remember I was, I was a part of one, a couple of months ago in November, and we have Lizzie or director of merch, star reading. And she's like, you know, we're constantly looking to do unexpected surprises for our team. And it goes on, she reads it. And then at the end said, all right, guys, so you have 30 minutes pack up your stuff, clear schedule, we're leaving. And the staff's like what? And they all start running around, clearing the schedule and they come out. We have a big party bus outside. And uh, Emily says, all right guys, here's a$500 gift card for each of you. We're going to the Tanger outlets. We're going to shop all day for you guys for Christmas, for your family, whatever you want. It's all yours. It's all your day. Thank you. And so we try to live by that vision by holding ourselves accountable and put in front of people. So that's a longer answer to it, but that's part of how we do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You mentioned PT. Barnum was a hero. I'm just curious, was that, so you are a PT Barnum fan before the greatest showman came out. I'm like, all right, I'm not going to call anyone, you know,
Speaker 3:Uh, PT, Farnham fan, all right. Because you know, they, they became in 2018 up and started singing songs. Um, but yes, I had to be, I had to be, you know, PT, Barton, what he did in the 18 hundreds, no one else was even, I mean, he was so far ahead of the time. It was outrageous. And so we had to figure out how to get attention of a low-level baseball team in a tiny town called gastro in North Carolina, PT, Barnum was a genius at it. So yeah, I read every book on him and yeah, I'm literally looking at a picture of him in my office. Quote, people have sent me a autographs from PT, Barnum from the 18 hundreds, which is awesome. Wow. I got pizza, literally got a PT Barnum card here. People give me so, yeah. Which is rare, you know, PT, Barnum baseball card is rare. So I'm sure it's worth something. But, um, yeah, there's, there's a lot to learn from him. And a lot of the things people said about him, uh wasn't true. He was, it was brilliant. And he did a lot of good. And I think, uh, I'm glad there was a movie that shared that a little bit.
Speaker 2:He hasn't said, did you like to move it then as everyone else,
Speaker 3:Your opinion of the movie, Jesse, was it all true? I come, of course not. And PT, Barnum went and ahead it, that way PT number one goal was to bring joy, bring happiness and make people and make people have a good time. And so, you know how the whole story went. I mean, it, it buttered it up and made it a lot more positive and happy. But what they did is they created music and they created a show with the movie, which made it great. And I think that's how PT Barnum would have done it. You know, don't, don't let, uh, all the logistics and details and facts get away from, uh, making someone feel special and you walk out of that. You can not be like singing and stuff. And like, you know, from now on like, like people just doing, and I'm like, what is happening? It's like PT, Barnum did that. Did any of those things that could actually really happen? Not all of it. Only a little bit, but now I'm entertained. And I think, I think that's the goal. I'm gonna say this. Sorry, you got to go on. I love it. You talk about leadership. You talk about, you know, management, people running like entertainment. I think people are so afraid to talk about entertaining. You know what the definition of entertainers, do you have any idea?
Speaker 2:Um, I'm waiting for it. I didn't
Speaker 3:Know either, like people say you're an entertainer. I'm like, I should look that up. It's provide enjoyment and provide amusement. Aren't we all in the entertainment business. Yeah. And so I think people are so, Oh, you're on a yellow tux. You're on a baseball team. You can entertain. I don't care if you're in a nonprofit, you're a heating and cooling company. You're a restaurant. How are you entertaining your people, your guests every single day and providing an enjoyment to music. Then I do it in a bigger way. But PT Barnum understood that with his movie, with everything, they were like, we're going to entertain and bring so much joy, enjoyment and amusement to you that we're going to win in the entertainment. If you get their hearts by their entertainment, I entertaining them. Everything else takes care of itself. So we lead with the entertainment and that's kind of this, the spirit of, and I think PT and Walt Disney, and they're so good at that. And so that's why I got a lot of inspiration.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, you already won my heart. I'm going to, I'm going to go buy a Savannah bananas. T-shirt after this what's up. Well, we're buying it. Let's buy them for everyone.
Speaker 3:I, I hope the experience is good. So I don't want to tell you about the ex. I don't want to tell you about the experience, but I hope you, I hope certain things happen that don't normally happen when you buy merchandise. So, okay.
Speaker 2:There's one piece of merchandise. You would encourage us to buy his first time fans. What would you tell us to buy?
Speaker 3:I mean, people in the primary shirt with that, with the, uh, with, uh, the logo, well, people will comment on it. So everyone, I was running with a guy that he's like, yeah, I was wearing my hat in Michigan. People like, Oh, Amanda bananas. I love that hat go bananas. He's like, so I would get something full logo, a rocket. And you never know. There may be some, uh, bonuses that come with it. You know, you never know. You never know how we deliver things. Let's put it this way. We failed the first year delivering things, but we've gotten better over the last five years. And there's no shipping, a$24 shirts,$24. If you want, if you want a banana cream soda, which we invented this past year, if you want banana cream soda, you get banana cream soda and you get a pint glass and everything. There's no shipping, even though shipping, this is not easy, but we've, we, we, we built it in. So it's good. You know,
Speaker 2:I have to introduce you to my friend, Greg. Well, remind me to connect with you again. All right, Greg fear. I wanted to have it in the lightning round a minute, but before we do, where can people connect with you? Where can people find your content new? You have a book out. Can you just share it?
Speaker 3:Search yellow tux. But, uh, no, I, uh, a few years ago I started posting everyday on LinkedIn. So on LinkedIn is my game. I have a lot of fun there and I just share lessons that I'm learning. And I think that's good thing for leadership too often. We're too afraid to share because we don't think we know, share the journey, share what you're learning. Uh, I think, you know, great leaders are people that share constantly and aren't afraid of what people think about them. And so I share constantly every day and I think it's helped me become a leader because I learned from the people that respond to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I actually found you because of LinkedIn, a friend of mine liked something that you posted. And I started looking through your stuff. I'm like, I gotta meet this guy, so
Speaker 3:Well, thank you. I know, but I think that's it like we are so holding ourselves back from actually going value. We think it's about us. Like, Oh, but you're making it about us. No, it's about other people because they open up to what they can learn from you. And I just think that's a, I mean, Mark Cuban, some of the greatest sports owners are doing it really well as well.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, Hey, let's dive in the lightning round. I'm sure you will have a lot of fun with this. What's the best advice you've ever received in your life and who gave it to you?
Speaker 3:Uh, that's a brutal question for someone that's read thousands of books and gets lots of advice, but I will say this, um, and this is going to be lightening. I apologize and go as fast as I can. I'll talk faster. Uh, the best my dad, as a kid used to tell me, Jesse, swing hard in case you hit it. Every time I came up to bat as a five-year-old, I would swing like crazy and I swung and missed a lot, but when I hit it and it took off, but that wasn't the best advice for my dad. The best advice for my dad was back in 2013, when my dad had two forms of cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, including, and also colon cancer. And, um, he was in the hospital for months and every day I called my dad and I said, dad, how you doing? And he'd go, great, Jess. Great. Just gotta be a, you know, a little challenging season, but wait till summer, wait till summer, Jesse everyday. Great. Every day until one day he called, I said, I've called dad, his dad. Hey, how are you doing? He goes, Jess, I'm good. I'm good. Good. How are you Jesse? What's going on? And I talked to my stepmother and he said, uh, she said, uh, you know, he really took the STEM cell and was just, I've never seen someone so sick. I didn't know how he was going to get through it. He was the sickest I've ever seen him. It was the chemo just wiped him out. And uh, I called the next day. Dad, if you don't Jess. Great. I'm great. Uh, just, y'all gonna be there soon going to be there soon. And, uh, a few months later, uh, he was in complete remission. Uh, he beat the cancer and the doctors at Beth Israel said he was the most positive patient they've ever met. And they'd never seen someone to feed cancer like they have with him. Wow. And I think that when you act about best advice, his mindset was all like, Hey, we're going to get to summer. I'm great. I'm good. And he's positivity has really been, I don't want to say the advice, but the something I look to every day, you know, when we think we had a bad, bad day or bad call or a bad email or a bad meeting or whatever, it's nothing. It is nothing. My dad battled unbelievable chemo where he was on his ground. Just sick, like you read about. And he said he was good that day. Wow. So that's the best advice I've received.
Speaker 2:If you could put a quote on a billboard for everyone to read, what would it
Speaker 3:I'll come on. That's a brutal question. And you know it, um, Oh geez. You know, I am a quote[inaudible] Um, all right, I'm going to go. What's on the back of the fans. First playbook be patient and what you want for yourself, but be impatient and how much you give to others
Speaker 2:Best purchase you've made in the last year for a hundred dollars or less.
Speaker 3:My cookie dealer I'm addicted. I'm addicted to half pound cookies from my cookie dealer. They're one of the best marketers I've ever seen. They've got almost 300,000 followers on Instagram. Their website is always closed. It only opens for a few minutes on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. And you get your chance to buy half pound cookie stuff with Snickers and Cinnabuns and brownies, and you name it. It's a thousand calories per cookie, and it's been my vice and I've probably bought from them 10 times over COVID and ate a hundred thousand calories of cookies. But that has been the best purchase. It brings me great joy at night, and I'm very happy with it. And it's called my cookie dealer. My cookie dealer. Look it up. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:I have three books. You a top few books. You find yourself giving away most often.
Speaker 3:Oh, giving away books, giving away books right now. My wife's, uh, go bananas kids book. I'm doing my wife side. I'm sending out a little bit, um, how to be like Walt, uh, uh, the carpenter, uh, by John Gordon. Um, Disney's land creativity, Inc. Uh, I could keep going, um, peak by chip Conley. I talked to so many others nuts, Southwest airlines. I don't give away a lot of books, but I read a lot of books. Those are great ones. Hope that's a good start.
Speaker 2:I've cast listener. If so, what are a few of your favorites?
Speaker 3:Yes. Um, I love my boy, Ryan Hawk, learning leader, listen to him regularly. We're we're close. I was on that show and she was awesome. Uh, StoryBrand Donald Miller was on him. That's a great one as well, entree leadership. And then I love the stories. There's some great like business, war stories, sports war stories, where they really build the story of like how the globe charter started and how Disney started. I liked those as well.
Speaker 2:What do you wish people knew about your story that they may not know?
Speaker 3:I wish they knew a lot more about my wife, Emily. Um, I can't say enough about, about her. Um, but you know, she's the oldest oldest in her family, three younger brothers. And I, when I talk about be patient, what you want for yourself, she everyday sacrifice is more than I've ever seen for anyone else. And she's the heart of the bananas. Everyone looks at me as I'm the showman, I'm the circus, but she's the heart that everyday is looking, what can we do for our team? She sends messages, packages. I mean, during COVID she went grocery shopping for our whole team, uh, and brought it in. It had literally brought it to their doors. She surprised our team with, uh, our fans first director with a trip to Ireland, with her father, her bucket list. She came up with the, I mean, she's the heart of it. And I wish people knew more about that.
Speaker 2:And speaking of your wife, you, you mentioned earlier, you guys are the parents to a foster child now, and we were talking a little bit before the interview about your passion for fostering. Can you just talk a little bit about that and just raise awareness around, around fostering? I thought that was powerful
Speaker 3:5000% and I'm glad to, and we're just getting started with that obviously. Uh, we're, we're two months in now as we record this and, um, it's been my wife's patching for years, um, because there's such a need, there's 500,000 kids in the U S right now that don't have a home and the system is broken and the people in social work are working their butts off, but there's not enough people. There's not enough time. There's not enough opportunities to communicate the right things, to help these kids and help these parents. And the parents needs just as much help as the kids. And, uh, we've seen in just a couple of months, you know, we had a sweet, sweet, amazing girl, uh, with us. And, uh, basically she had challenges, gasses cuts, wasn't eating, couldn't speak was terrified. The dark terrified of books, terrified of her crib and in just two months, um, she's a different girl. She's the happiest I've ever seen her. And I'll tell you one of the best from a leadership advice I learned, you know, we were talking to a counselor that was involved in foster care before we started this journey. And, uh, I said, you know, I understand we got to lead with empathy. She goes, no, no, no, no. You need to lead with a lot more than empathy. And she goes, she goes, and you gotta, you gotta look at these kids with a lot more than empathy. I go, what do you mean? She goes, you need to look at them with admiration. She goes, what they've gone through in two years, three years, four years, they've gone through more challenges, adversity, and trauma and struggles, but then you will ever go through in your life. You need to look at them with admiration every day and look up to these kids for what they've gone through and how they survived. And I'll tell you right now, I look at our young girl and I look at everybody in a different way that it's so easy to judge people on the outside. You know, you see our little girl and she's tiny. She's not eating that well, you know, she had gum stuck to her hair before she arrived to us. I mean, just challenges. And you want to judge that person, or like, in your sense, a homeless person that you have experienced and are you want to judge that person, but what if you look at them with admiration, you know, like back in the day we looked to people like Martin Luther King Jr. With admiration. What if we looked at these people with admiration, how would we treat them differently? How would we do, what would we do for them differently? And how would we make a bigger impact and difference? And so that's been some of the best advice I've received and I try to do it every single day.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing that raising awareness. And obviously thank you for doing something about that issue in our country. And hopefully this will help raise some awareness and challenge some other parents to do the same. Um, what's the greatest challenge you're facing right now?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Focus, focus, focus. Amen, man. That's what I'm looking at. My whiteboard over here. It's got like, you know, 37 priorities, uh, which means not that you know what it's okay. I'm going to say that. So, um, give yourself permission. So visionaries people that like to be scattered brain and there's bringing on integrators. I have an amazing integrator and execute on our president, Jared, and we have a same page lunch every single week. We learned this from the book rocket fuel, which is a great book and integrators and visionaries. And we have a same page lunch and Jared's like, all right, Jesse, what's on your whiteboard. And I just like, I want to have a sip line across the field. I want to have a bananas brewery. I want to have a banana sweet. Let's put a speakeasy in the ballpark. Let's go travel. And he's like Jesse art one at a time, but I'll tell you, I don't tell a visionary or person. They can't be like stop being so scattered because it dry. It brings us excitement. It brings us energy. So focus is what I need to get better at. But I think I have a system that's that's working.
Speaker 2:So being a visionary, I have to ask out of curiosity, knowing the rocket fuel, uh, set up, um, prior to having an integrator, how did you deal with managing people and how do people deal with working with you? Because I know what a visionary is. It can be frustrating, right? Especially if you're an executer, it's like this person has a new idea every single day, they're all over the place. Uh, I mean it, wasn't, it's getting an integrator, an absolute game changer for you. It sounds like talk to that because I think there's a lot of visionaries who deal with this, uh, tension.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I think that you have to, you have to just test things out. Yeah. I struggled was trying to do so many things. I'm a great starter. Visionary is a great starter. We'll do this, we'll do this, we'll do this. And then it's like, Oh wait, details. Get me no way. Nope, no, don't touch those details. Um, so, uh, yeah, you know, we're big in everyone that started with us or everyone that's with us, from our vice president to our president, to our, they started as interns. We do an intern then to seasonal and then to full-time. So we learned very quickly working with me, um, and the entertainment. I'm still looking for that integrator because I'm hard, I'm fast paced. We're gonna do this now. We're gonna do this. I mean, we do different promotions every night in front of a live audience. We have 250 different promotions that we have on two, three pages that we do like good luck. And I just added 15 yesterday. Like that's not good. Um, so yeah, we're testing. So we'll have more people testing. And so, but I think, yeah, now that we've found with our president, it's a game changer and I would dedicate more time into how can you test more people and say, all right, how do you deal with this? How do you deal with this? And then lead with respect? I think that's the biggest thing. I think executor's, or integrators don't respect visionaries as much because they are just the idea person and the executer has to do it. And the visionaries don't respect the executer as much because they often say no, or I can't do this right now, or they don't do it up to their level. I think you have to lead with respect and admiration again, that they're doing things that you can't do and you're not good at doing. So that's how I've tried to take that approach. Like Jared, I love you. Like, I appreciate you. I respect you. Can we still maybe do the speakeasy, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So good. What's your greatest leadership pet peeve.
Speaker 3:Oh, Nancy negative questions are tough for me, man. Pet peeve. I don't know what's yours.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a great question. You
Speaker 3:Can just ask a question and not even know an answer yourself. That's bushes Lake and you know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I know the willingness to have hard conversations and I used to be that person. So that was born out of a lesson that I've had to learn, but yeah, just an unwillingness to confront things and just be passive aggressive. That's probably my,
Speaker 3:My biggest one. That's great. And I suck at that. I'm really bad at that. I don't want to hurt people's feelings. I want to be loved so much, so I'm really bad at that. So Jared's good at that. I'm bad at that. So I'll be like, yeah, that, wasn't that good? How you did. And they're like, you're being very passive aggressive. I'm like, that's a good answer for a pet peeve. You're probably right. I probably set the pet peeve on that, so yeah. All right. Good. I just used your answer. Hope that works. Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, do you have any unusual habits to make you successful daily
Speaker 3:5000% when the morning, when the day, how L rod thank you very much for this. Uh, my mornings are electric and they're ridiculous and it doesn't make sense. I wake up every morning, anywhere between four and four 30 and my mind is going like, there's no, like, you know, it's people like how to get out of bed. Like, don't talk to me till I've had my coffee. Like, I don't understand those people. Like what do you mean? You really need a coffee till I can talk to you, but that's a whole nother thing. I wake up immediately. I write a thank you letter. I've been doing this since 2016. I changed my life. I thank you. Experiment. That's now done over 2000 every single day. I wake up. First thing I do. I know I'm going right to the night before. So I write down that person's name, have an address. Ready? Do a thank you letter to start the morning. Then I write down 10 ideas. Most of those ideas are crap. They're terrible. Some are actually pretty good, but only a few. Then I write in my journal. Then I read and I read walking to get steps in. I'm weird like that. Then I go for a run and I listened to a podcast and that's getting my vegetables in. So that whole starts between four 30 until about six 30. Then it's time to get the kids. Those two hours I've won the day. It's amazing. I feel on top of the world. And uh, that habit has changed. I mean, I'm getting my workout, my running, I'm getting my mental workout. And then my ideas, everyone says, how do you come up with so many ideas? I come up with a lot of ideas. That's how I come up. So many ideas. I come up with ideas. I work my idea muscle. If you want to have more ideas, you got to work out every day. And so I write those ideas every day. And so I all in the morning, I'm just training myself, giving me discipline to be in a better spot. That is a habit and it's been a win. And so thank you. Hello, rod for starting that. And then me evolving it to what it is now.
Speaker 2:What's a, what's something you've done. That is a, it was on your bucket list that you think everyone should experience in their lifetime.
Speaker 1:Great question. What's your sir,
Speaker 2:That I've done. I would go to BAMF we're but we're a huge national park fan. So, uh, but that's probably our favorite so far go hike and Banff.
Speaker 3:Um, I'll say it hasn't happened yet. I'll say for my bucket list, like it hasn't happened yet. It's what it's going to be. It's going to be something with my kids and my wife and my family that, you know, you have those moments. We have dance parties every night and you have those moments when you're part of some things that are unique and you're like, you lose track of time. I wouldn't change anything. I have that with the business every day. I'm like right now you can see how energized I am guys, but it's going to be a bucket list moment where we're seeing something at something and I can see pure joy and my whole family's face. And I'm looking there and I want to just time capsule that moment. That will be it. I'm sure it's going to happen sooner than later. What's your favorite
Speaker 2:Family's favorite dance party song at this time?
Speaker 3:Oh, geez. It's lion guard. Not lion King lion guard. Zucker's on or whatever it is. Ridiculous. I do sing alongs on Alexa. So you put a great playlist guys play a singalongs Alexa, or how will I know radio? You know, Whitney Houston, the old school. There's a lot of great dance songs on those. So that's when like daddy does dance songs. Um, but for kids dance song, it is lying guard over and over again. Or I just can't wait to be King from the lion King, which I think Maverick played 13 times yesterday. So yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:My girls are all about Mary Poppins returns right now, so,
Speaker 3:Ooh. Okay. All right. We've moved past marijuana, which is good. I couldn't. So I guess
Speaker 2:I was Maui for, for Halloween. That was fun.
Speaker 3:You got, you got the same body as the rock so I could see it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:If you can go back and have coffee with 20 year old, Jesse, what would you tell him?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:20 year old, Jesse now you're actually giving age 20 year-old. Jesse was life was going to be a professional baseball player. I had a full college scholarship. I was talking to professional teams. I was getting a Christmas letters cards from the New York Mets. It was crazy. Um, and that was everything. 22 year old, Jessie tore his shoulder and ended his career. And I filmed myself as part of a capstone project. And I was emotional saying what I dreamed of doing my whole life was over. And I thought it was the end of the world. Uh, 20 three-year-old Jesse found his, uh, running a baseball team, more like a circus and that 23 year old Jesse at that last game of the year on a Sunday, I'm standing top of the roof in Gastonia, uh, for our last game on a Sunday, it was a hundred degrees and no one comes and it was three o'clock in the afternoon. The games started at six and cars were lining up and people were lining up and I had a tear coming down my face and I called my dad. I said, dad, we did it. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. And so if I were to say a 20 year old, it said, uh, just roll with it, enjoy the journey. Love the journey. Don't think that this one thing is it baseball. And, uh, I would just keep going, keep rolling.
Speaker 2:So one day, many, many a days from now years from now, when you're at the end of your life, what do you want to look back on? What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker 3:Um, and the beginning of my book, I actually opened with my eulogy, um, which is a dark place to write when you're like, I think I was 32 years old, 31 years old when I wrote the book. So to write your eulogy is kind of weird, but I think that's a great question. How would you be remembered? I asked that on my podcast, the first two or three seasons, um, you know, there's the political answer and then there's the real answer. I departmentalize my life. I have business and I have, uh, uh, personal and family. And so, you know, for business, you know, I want to, uh, you know, make a difference and inspire people to be their best self, to stand out, to challenge the status quo, to question the rules and really live themselves to their best ability and really amplify who they are. You know, we weren't born to fit in. We were born to stand out. So I hope that I, you know, when I look back or at the end, people can say, you know, you really helped me be my full self, my whole self, and really make a difference. Uh, personally, I want my kids to think I'm their best friend and I'm there for them. And, uh, that I'm always there to have fun. And my word this year was play. And if with ever my son or my foster daughter says, uh, uh, daddy, do you want to play? The answer is always yes. And I hope that could be the answer can always be yes for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:Wow. Anything else you want to leave leaders with today?
Speaker 3:Wow. You throw a lot at me, man. Uh, no, I, I will say this. Um, if you want better answers in business, you got to ask better questions and you, my friend asked a lot of amazing questions today. And if you want to be a better leader yet ask better questions of yourself, better questions about your industry that you're in, that are questions about your people that are questions about your customers and fans. Every single night in our ballpark, one of us goes undercover. As a fan, we park with the fans. We walk in with the fans, we sit with the fans, we eat with the fans. We take notes with the fans. I do this and I, the first night I did it, I'll never forget. I actually hit a pothole, was pulling out. I was like, and my car bottomed out. I was like, this is the worst first impression ever. And then I saw our parking penguins, which we have penguins at park, your cars. One was eating a burger and his back turned to me. I'm like, this is terrible. You have to put yourself in other people's shoes. And to do that, you have to ask better questions. And so I would challenge a great leaders, ask more questions and focus on how can you be more useful and not more successful. If you ask the better questions that be more useful, you will make a huge difference in an impact. Okay,
Speaker 2:I'm Jessie I'm fired up. I've been fired up. This is the first minute we started talking. This was entertaining. This was extremely inspirational and extremely practical. Uh, so thank you just for sharing your message and, uh, thank you for the time together. And I will go by my Savannah bananas t-shirt and see what else comes with it right
Speaker 3:After this. Yes. Yeah. So I appreciate it. Seriously. This was awesome. You fired me up. This was definitely one of the best I've ever been on. So thank you for asking such great questions.
Speaker 1:[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Hey leader, thank you so much for listening to my interview with Jesse Cole. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. I enjoyed it so much that as soon as I was done with the interview, I ended up going and buying a Savannah bananas t-shirt and I cannot wait till I get it into the mail so I can wear it all the time. But if you enjoy Jessie, you can find ways to connect with him and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org forward slash two seven, three, as always. If this episode helped you, it would mean the world to me. If you would share your takeaways on social media, take a screenshot and share it and tag us, or Hey, text it and share it with leaders that you think it could add value to. Uh, it'll help us with our mission of reaching more leaders. So thank you in advance for that. And again, if you're willing to leave a rating and review, that would be awesome as always, I like to end with a quote and just given Jessie's nature in this episode, I'll quote, Bob Goff. I thought this was fitting for this episode. He said, don't let other people decide who you are. And Jesse, certainly hasn't done that. And I hope that that'll be something that you don't let other people do as well in your life and leadership. So, Hey, thanks for listening to the podcast, Laura, and I appreciate you so much, and we will talk to you next episode.
Speaker 1:[inaudible].