The Hard Way With Joe De Sena

Kevin Cleary, CEO of Clif Bar, has his company on the right track if not the most trodden one. Whereas most companies only think of maximizing their quarterly profits, Clif bar is planning decades ahead and profiting from the foresight. Whereas most companies focus on satisfying their shareholders, Clif Bar has a firm social and environmental mission that strengthens the company and community at large. They're one of the few, but important examples that doing good, yet remaining lucrative, are not as mutually exclusive as many believe. Lessons: 1. It's much better motivation to tell someone they're a hard worker than to tell them that they're smart. 2. A company that can focus on long term goals, despite the pressure to show quarterly profits, will ultimately make better decisions. 3. A purpose driven business keeps those involved with it engaged and passionate.

Wrestling requires a mindset that transcends sport. What can you learn from them? Everything. It's a sport with no excuses. It's just you and your competitor and if you fail, there is no one else to blame. The sport by its very nature develops mental toughness. Joe talks to three promising young wrestlers, Nate Carr Jr., an Olympic hopeful in a legendary family of wrestling greats, and All Americans from Cornell, Gabe Dean and Nahshon Garrett. They discuss the unique aspects of the sport that prepare its participants to excel in life. The thing that they all share in common is their sense of drive and moving forward no matter what. The very tools that'll help you grapple with life's inevitable adversities. Lessons: 1. If nothing changes, nothing changes. 2. Sometimes to master adversity you need to create it. 3. Treat people to your gift.

Biohacking ground breaker Dave Asprey, got the controversial trend of adding butter to coffee going and it turns out that’s just one of many hacks espoused by this alternative health entrepreneur. He believes that by gathering the right data, our bodies can be optimized through unconventional methods. Asprey himself has been hacking his mitochondria for many years. Besides the things we can monitor, Asprey describes the confounding array of activity that occurs without our conscious awareness. Yet this state that is most difficult to pin down turns out to be the one in which human performance peaks.Lessons: 1. Recovery is a vital part of training but often gets neglected. 2. The flow state is elusive but when we reach it we do amazing things. 3. Biohacking attempts to understand when your body is helping you and when it’s betraying you.

While running the Boston Marathon, clinical social worker Jeffrey Zeizel had to call up all his expertise and coping mechanisms when a bomb went off at the finish line. His son was ahead of him and there was a chance he was caught in the fray. Though nobody would blame him for panicking, he immediately went into action administering psychological first aid reassuring others that the worst case scenario is not the most likely one and in the process helping himself to cope as well. Zeizel has a wellspring of insight on what it takes to be resilient and the good news for humanity is that, in short, it involves bringing all of our best qualities to the forefront. Lessons: 1. The last stage of going through grief is not really acceptance but developing the tools to cope. 2. Remember AAA: action alleviates anxiety. 3. It's easy to fulfill mundane responsibilities, but to do the things that give life meaning is difficult yet worthwhile. 4. To be resilient optimism is crucial but it must be tempered with a healthy dose of realism.

Reno Rolle, to paraphrase Hippocrates, let food be his medicine when seeking ways to ameliorate his son’s ADD. It worked so well Rolle pivoted his successes into a company, Boku Superfoods. He harnessed the power of nutritionally dense foods, popularly known as “superfoods,” to create a line of foods. In his years long effort to develop a superior product, Rolle not only fulfilled his mission of having a positive impact on people, but gained some valuable insights into a productive life as well. Obstacles are a part of life and a few successes in pursuit of a lofty goal provide the impetus to overcome them.Lessons: 1. Nutrition is a key factor in meeting challenges. 2. In starting a business, focus on having a positive impact and the money will eventually take care of itself. 3. A taste of success may be all you need to provide the impetus to overcoming great obstacles.

If Ned Spieker is a typical billionaire real estate mogul, then the path to success isn’t what you might expect. According to Spieker, it’s not about being an autocrat, but being a servant, not creating a hierarchy, but sharing responsibility, and not about wanting it all, but starting small and working very hard. Serendipity, Spieker admits, plays a big part, but that’s out of our hands regardless. It often takes a little luck to get past seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But in the meantime we have to lay the groundwork that effectively loads the dice in our favor.Lessons: 1. When you’re going through difficult episodes they’re crises; but in hindsight they’re blips. 2. Self esteem is earned; you can’t give it. 3. Good leaders eat last: when you serve your people and build trust they will work harder and smarter as a result.

Aiden Chase, a spiritual healer for Hollywood types, entrepreneurs and regular folks, takes a holistic approach to success in life: we approach our highest selves through a balance of mind, body and spirit. Fanciful as it sounds, there's common sense behind it. The mind functions optimally when allowed to reflect clearly and honestly in the quiet places that are growing scarce. Importantly, he guides clients to identify their biggest obstacles, their fears, and no longer repress them, and then do it anyway. Chances are they won't become billionaires, but then again it probably won't matter. They'll have obtained something far more valuable. Lessons: 1. Success is achieved through a holistic integration of mind, body and spirit. 2. Fear is the biggest obstacle we need to transform to move forward. 3. Nature is the best place for quiet contemplation in order to envision your direction in life.

Zhong Lou’s path to MMA prominence was never in doubt. He started practicing karate not long after he learned to walk and talk and has mastered a strikingly diverse number of disciplines, from Chinese acrobatics to Mongolian wrestling, since. Forty years later Lou is determined to leave a legacy with his San Francisco gym, Dragon House MMA. The money to keep it up and running is not easy to come by, and it’s not unheard of for a student to sweep the floors in exchange for training. But the bottom line for Luo is human transformation, and in that he is making a tidy profit.Lessons: 1. Even in solitary endeavors, mastery often requires a team effort. 2. When money isn’t quite cutting it, passion will keep the doors open. 3. Fitness priorities shift with age; training for invincibility while young must gradually shift to training for health if one is to remain viable.

Human guinea pig and journalist A.J. Jacobs has lived according Old Testament rules, outsourced his entire life, and subjected himself to every diet and fitness program he could find to he could to see what he could learn. Besides the more obvious lessons, like sheep don’t do well in New York apartments and long beards are itchy, he gained valuable takeaways that he shares in his books which include “The Year of Living Biblically,” “Drop Dead Healthy.” He provides a whole other angle to the trope, “fake it til you make it.” Through his interesting experiments Jacobs proves that some of the best adventures can be conjured up in the mind.Lessons: 1. Expressing gratitude for everything develops awareness of just how many things we have to be thankful for. 2. It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking then to think your way into a new way of acting. 3. In terms of genealogy, we are all one large extended family, so be kind.

Col. Nye spent the weekend at the very first Spartan Winter Agoge to to get a taste of the lessons shared by instructors there. We’ve also included a special message about Agoge’s meaning from Joe De Sena. The Spartan Agoge is a 48 or 60 Hour test of mental and physical endurance. The goal is not just to break you down but to build you back up with greater purpose, resilience, commitment and knowledge of yourself. The winter Agoge includes the practical survival skills you’ll need to complete the event safely even in the brutal sub zero conditions this year’s participants faced. This is Col. Nye’s first time doing solo field interviews for Spartan Up, let us know what you think. PS- this is an episode we suggest you WATCH.