← Mick Unplugged
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- [00:01]
Jesse Cole
On January 9, Greenland 2 is making an impact across the globe. Hang on. Audiences rave. It's deeply emotional and better than the first. I wanted you beginning first. You'll be holding your breath from start to finish. Greenland 2 migration, rated PG 13.
- [00:16]
Mick Hunt
This episode, you already know is fire. Like, just wrapped it up. Jesse Cole gives a master class. Like, I'm not even gonna prolong this. A master class in business and scaling. So if you're a leader, if you're a business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, this episode is giving you all the tools that you need to create the best experience possible for your customers, for your fans, and for your employees, who are often the most forgotten. So get your notebook ready, get your recorder ready, because this is truly a masterclass. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the brilliant, the amazing Mr. Jessica Cole. You're listening to Mick Unplugged. Hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where purpose meets power, and stories spark transformation. Mick takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get Unplugged. Jess, how you doing today, brother?
- [01:20]
Jesse Cole
So great to be with you, my friend.
- [01:22]
Mick Hunt
Man, I'm the honored one. You know, I always start my podcast by asking my guests about their because. Right? That thing that's deeper than your why. You know, Simon Sinek wrote the book start with why. And I. I do believe you start with why, but you're actually fueled by your because, right? So if I were to say, what's your why? You probably say your family, your kids, success. But when I say but why? That sentence usually starts with well, because. And I care about what happens after well, because. So if I were to say, Jesse, man, all the things that you do, the way that you give back, the way that you've changed industry and marketing and visibility, what's your because?
- [02:04]
Jesse Cole
Well, it's a deep question. And it's what makes you feel alive, you know, what gives you energy, what fires you up? And, you know, a lot of that, if you really dig deep, I think it goes to the root of your upbringing. And, you know, for me, as an only child, you know, my parents got divorced when I was a kid. My dad helped raise me. And, you know, I always wanted to feel loved. I wanted to feel part of something. I wanted to feel with people. And, you know, what we get to do every day is bring people together from all over the world, from 2 years old to 82 years old see people have fun, let loose, not take themselves too seriously, to be in a world of joy. And, you know, I get to be in the middle of that every day. And, you know, I think the world that has joy, that has fun, that isn't so focused on all the things that are going wrong is a better world. And so, yes, our platform is banana ball, and we get to put on a crazy show every single night. But I hope that we get to do something that is truly contagious. That joy, that fun, that togetherness that let loose be. Be the best version of yourself can continue to. For people when they go home, to at work, to their friends, to their colleagues. And so when I think about. Because it's bringing the world together, filled with joy, and just having the time of our life doing it. And that's what I think about daily.
- [03:21]
Mick Hunt
And you do it better than anyone I know. And now a lot of things make sense. Jesse, it's the only child thing, right? So, like I told you, like Daymond John, my mentor, he's the only child. You two are so alike that now I get it. Like, it's. It's. It's the only child thing, right? Like, you had to be so imaginative and creative and, you know, to get people to not. Not to be around you, but to. To get people to want to. To continue those relationships with you. And you get home and it's you and your parents, right? Or. Yeah, your parents were separated or divorced. So, like, it literally is you, and you've got to be creative with, well, what do I do or who do I talk to, man?
- [04:01]
Jesse Cole
Talk to us about and create attention. And, like, you know, I wanted to, you know, like, hey, you know, my dad worked so hard. He was working constantly as come home, and I wanted, you know, hey, dad, let's do this. Let's do this and create attention and be fun. And, you know, when I got to be around friends, it's like, what can I do? And it was, you know, just to build, make the most of every moment with people. And, you know, I think about that. And, you know, when I go through a door every day, you know, my mindset says, bring the energy, bring the fun. And so it's like a trigger for me whenever I interact with people. Like, you know, I want them to feel more energized after talking with me and being with me and more fired up about what we can do and not what we can't do. And that. That excites me. And so, yeah, I. I think as an older Child, you know, obviously I was spirited to try to make the most of every moment when I had a chance to be around somebody. And I, I still try to do that to this day.
- [04:47]
Mick Hunt
There you go. There you go, man. You know, you've changed, you've changed my life, you changed my businesses in so many ways because my mindset has completely shifted. One of the things that you've said, and it's on my wall because I need this reminder every day, is that normal gets normal results. And for me, the serial entrepreneur, the highly competitive person that I am, and I know that there are a lot of people that are listening, that are watching, that are just like us, explain to us why normal just gets normal results and doing the unreasonable is where your focus should be.
- [05:28]
Jesse Cole
Yeah, well, let's go back to, you know, when I started. I was a 23 year old GM of a very small college summer baseball team in Gastonia, North Carolina that was failing for seven years. Lowest in the league, the country in attendance, only a couple hundred fans coming to the games. And, you know, it was just, it was what it was. And I realized that they were doing the same things every other team did. You have fireworks, you do a bobblehead here and there, you would do the things that everyone else did. Well, if you do what everyone else is gonna do, you're gonna get the same results as everyone else. And so, you know, you gotta do what others won't do. And when you do what others won't do, you're gonna do things that may fail. And so I've just been, you know, I think I learned that first concept from Alan Fadden. He wrote the book Innovation on Demand. Really brilliant man, very creative. And yeah, it's whatever's normal, do the exact opposite. And, you know, he shared the story of how he sold his book. You know, most people would have your book in a regular bookstore, you know, or with thousands of different books, or you'd have it on Amazon. He's like, I bought an entire retail store in Minneapolis and I made it a one book bookstore for my own book. And he literally had his book in different sections. Business history, self help. And he got so much attention. And I heard that story. It was very formative for me. Because he was 23, he went in a different direction. And so when I thought about building a banana ball and starting with first our team in Gastonia and then the bananas, I was like, we got to do things on the field that people never seen before. And so the first thing that we said was like, well, Everyone expects players to play. What if they actually danced? And so, yeah, it was hard getting the players to dance. They didn't want to dance in the beginning, but players in the middle of a game dancing, people were like, that's a little bit different. And I saw the reaction to that, and people started talking about, oh, you guys have the players that dance, right? And. And, oh, yeah, you guys did the grandma beauty pageant, right? Oh, you guys did flatulence fun night. Oh, you guys did. And all these crazy things. That's what they talked about. No one goes home and gets excited. It's like, oh, I had the most normal day today. You want to talk about it? No. No one gets excited about normal. No one gets excited about professional. They get excited about memorable. They get excited about remarkable. So every day, I'm chasing those moments and trying to create those moments for everyone we interact with.
- [07:39]
Mick Hunt
And I think that is so important to everyone. That's a leader, that's an entrepreneur, that's listening. It doesn't matter your industry. And that's what I learned from Jesse. It's creating those moments that people remember, because we've all heard Maya Angelou's quote, right? People don't remember the things that you say. They remember how you make them feel. And I think that is so important, and you've mastered that. So for the person that's watching or listening, and they're like, okay, how do I do that within my business, that might have a corporate feel or maybe a retail feel, and in my team can't get up and dance, or at least they think their team can't get up and dance.
- [08:15]
Jesse Cole
Everybody can dance. Even if you can't dance, you can dance. I'll tell you that. I've seen that with hundreds of players. But, yes, I know exactly what you're saying. So I can only go by the framework of what we use. And, you know, the framework that we started with was we looked at all the friction points in an experience for every customer that we interact with. I learned this from Walt Disney. I mean, Walt Disney put himself in his guest shoes, you know. Yeah. He said, whenever I go on a ride, I'm always asking, what's wrong with this thing and how can we improve? And so, you know, if you look at your industry, you look at what you do, and you look at what are all those friction points? What are all those frustration points for the customer? And then you look at what are all the normal ways of doing things. And so, you know, even to start a list, this is the normal way of doing a podcast. This is the conventional way of selling this. This is the normal way of doing an invoice, this is the normal way of doing voicemail. This is the normal way of doing an email signature. This is the normal way of whatever it is, those are micro little and then say, well, what would be something that would be remarkable? Fans first is the name of our company. You know, that's the spirit of how we do everything. But there's three words that we talk about regularly and it's you wouldn't believe. And it's how do we get our customers, our fans, our team members, everyone we interact with to say, you wouldn't believe, you wouldn't believe what they did today. And so whatever you're doing, how do you create some you wouldn't believe moments? The only way you do that is you look at what are the normal and say, all right, well, what would be something that would be a little bit crazier, a little bit different, a little bit wilder, a little bit more remarkable, a little bit more fun, Whatever that word that fits into your brand. Ours is fun. So we look at fun with everything. How do you make it more fun? How do you make baseball fun? How do you make every moment of our social media fun? Those are the things that we look at. So I think it's just a framework. And you know, every day you got to take time coming up with ideas. If you just say, oh, I'm going to change it, like you got to work your idea muscle. Are you, are you working your idea muscle and actually coming up with ideas on things you can do differently in your job, in your industry? If you're not doing it, good luck, you're not gonna, you're gonna get out of shape. And I mean by you're gonna outta shape, you're not gonna be able to come up with a lot of good ideas. And so that's what we think about.
- [10:14]
Mick Hunt
So a follow up question to that, because I love that and it takes a team to be able to do those things right. Because I know how wild and crazy Jesse probably gets in these team meetings where you talk about ideas and I'm sure now your team has evolved to, they're coming up with some of these crazy cool ideas aligned in that fan first moment, that fan first mantra.
- [10:37]
Jesse Cole
How often do you talk about it? You know, I think you can put some things on your wall and say, this is who we are, this is what we stand for. But how often do you actually talk about it? How often do you live by it how often when something goes wrong and it's easy not to do what's best for fans and do what's best for your business, do you actually live by those values and show your team this is who you are? Here's an example.
- [11:01]
Mick Hunt
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- [12:09]
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- [13:52]
Jesse Cole
Last year, we by mistake sent an email out to our fans. It was supposed to go out just to 4,000 because there were only a handful of tickets left in Savannah for a chance to buy tickets. The last few tickets in Savannah, instead of 4,000, we sent it out to 44,000. We offered them all the opportunity to get tickets with time slots. So I remember I'm flying, I'm going out to give a speech when this is happening. And I land Twitter, Facebook emails. Everyone's messaging me, how dare you. You said you were going to do this. You weren't going to do this. Literally, our time slot was 9 o' clock and there were no tickets available. It was Armageddon internally. Like it was Armageddon, right? So immediately, myself and Jared, our president, who's been with us since day one, we get on the phone, we say, what are we going to do? And say, immediately apologize. That's the first step right now. And again, that's, you know, that's table stakes. Some people don't do it. But the first thing. So we wrote, I was like, jared, I want to do this. He's like, no, I want to do it. I'm like, okay. So Jared wrote an amazing apology letter. And we said, that's not enough. Apology is one thing. That's not enough. So what are you going to really stand by it? So what are we going to do? We said, we're going to take care of all these people with tickets for this coming tour. What does that equal? $6 million loss for the company, over 100,000 plus tickets that we took care of for people. And so what we did is after we offered that to them, they had their opportunity to come to any game they want. Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, anywhere. And we have a demand of over 4.2 million people on our lottery list. So this is just basically throwing away 6 million. But we said, we're going to do it. We got everyone on our team on a. On a zoom. And we immediately said, turn your cameras on. This is why we're doing this. And then what happened? Those first few games that people had tickets, they weren't showing up at the high rate that we usually get. We get 95% redemption. But because they were free tickets for them. It was down to like 75%. And I was like, that's unacceptable. We have millions of people that want to go to our games. So we start messaging them off road. So finally we said, we will buy back your tickets so we can sell them, buy back tickets they never even paid for. So now we're offering free money to these people, literally, you know, 200, $300 to get back their tickets so we can give them to people that are going to come to the game. Do you stand by your values? Six million dollar loss, pretty big hit. You go back three, four or five years ago, that's more revenue than the total company brought in.
- [16:18]
Mick Hunt
Right.
- [16:18]
Jesse Cole
But it's fans first. And that's what we're going to do and that's how we're going to make those decisions. So give examples, give stories, share how you do it. If you got to do it every single day and that makes the impact.
- [16:29]
Mick Hunt
Love it, brother. Love it. And you just said something about stories. And I tell people all the time, like there's, there's three storytellers I know that are great, like Nick Manton, Damon Johnson, amazing storyteller, and Jesse Cole. Right. So how, what role does storytelling play in the way that you connect with your fans, your employees, and sometimes even your critics?
- [16:52]
Jesse Cole
Yeah, So I think we think more about storytelling first, interestingly, with our biggest fans, which are our team members. Right. And so we talked about how do we keep fans first in front of people. So when we go on the tour now, we have six teams, we have three tours going all over the country. The first day we show up and we do the unscalable, to do the scalable. It doesn't make sense to travel with 150 to 200 people to every city that is millions of dollars. But again, we want to have that high touch. Even at a football stand with 100,000 fans, we want to have high touch. When we get there, the first thing we do is we have a fans first talk. And that Myself, Jared, some of our leaders, we share stories, examples of some fans, first moment that happened, whether, you know, we had to a young fan, whether it was a proposal, whether it was a moment fan, their first bucket list trip in four years. What we did and we share that, what we did in the upper deck, you know, the man in, as are our cast, what we did there, we share those examples and those stories. And then the next night after our final game, we actually have another fans first chat where we recognize our team and we give Shout outs about those moments. Then a couple days later, we get back in the office on Tuesday. We start, we talk about the fans first principles and more fans for stores. We're getting three touch points and then more because of our other teams and other tour of these examples, these stories, who we are, and that's what we talk about. We never talk about revenue. In fact, I have one financial meeting a year. It's less than two hours. Like, that's it. I don't go into, I don't go into our account. I don't have any. It's, it's a mandatory thing for me. I was like, all right, Jesse, here's where I'm. All right, great. All right, we go create fans now and have fun. But like, that's. I spend all our time talking fans first, talking ideas and talking creating. So we share stories with our team on those fans moments and then, yeah, obviously we share stories with our fans in social media, but our goal is just to entertain them. It's to bring joy, it's to bring fun. And yes, we do some storytelling, but mostly it's who we are, what we stand for internally with our team first.
- [18:41]
Mick Hunt
Absolutely. Absolutely. I would say as a, as a fan of you personally, one of the things that I appreciate is the fact that you're always reinventing concepts, thoughts, ideas. And I tell leaders and entrepreneurs this all the time. Like, a lot of people think reinvention means a complete 180 or a complete change. Like, sometimes reinvention is like, I don't like the way this one thing is doing. Let me reinvent how that one thing is going. And when I watch all the things that you've done over the last several years, I see that that's also your mindset too. Like, you don't have to change everything, but you do reinvent in different ways. Talk to us about the importance of being able to what this is the term of Mickey McOnally to micro reinvent so that you're not changing scale of everything that you're doing.
- [19:34]
Jesse Cole
Yeah. So it's a clear direction. You know, what can you be the best in the world at? Todd Graves, the founder of Raising Canes, said, do one thing and do it better than anyone else. So for us, we believe we can create the greatest show in sports. We believe no one will put the energy and effort into combining show elements and music and characters and dance and fun with the competitiveness of banana ball in one world and make it all happen together. And so we spend a lot of our time thinking about Our shows in every moment from what people don't realize is that hey, the game may start, the show may start at 7 o', clock, but. Or the game may start at 7 o', clock, the show actually starts at 2 o' clock or now with the Texas tailgaters, the greatest pregame in sports, they're actually in the parking lot on their home games. So the whole team is actually out in the parking lot greeting fans, interacting, playing games. They're grilling. We grill tons of hot dogs and burgers just for fans for free out in the tailgate. So when fans are first pulling up in the parking lot, the tailgaters send the show, send, send the town. And then literally at 2 o' clock we do a rope drop and we have a big opening where everyone gets in. Then the players are signing autographs in major league stadiums right when we open. Then we have a full show out there from literally 3 to 4:30 with a big March opening. Then from 4:30 till 7 we have about 72 different promotion skits, dances, songs that happen before the game. Then we go from 7 to 9 we have a full show. Then from 9 to 10 we have a postgame plaza party with the cast and then we sign autographs to the last films. So that's what we believe we can be the best in the world at. So we spend all of our time, so much of our time thinking about reinventing there, creating how do we make the show a little better. There's a boring moment here. It's why we changed the rules of Banana Ball and eliminated mound visits. Because no one in the world gets excited about a mound visit. No one's like, oh, I can't wait to hopefully have three or four mound visits today. I love when the coach slowly walks out to the mound boy. That's my favorite moment. So again, you got to look at those friction points, you got to eliminate them and then you got to listen to your fans. Not what they tell you, but how they act. The way we developed Banana Ball is we watched fans literally with a camera set up every 30 minutes. We were watching when our fans got up and left in our sting for a whole season. And we realized they were leaving early at 9 o', clock, we realized they were getting on their seats. That's why we made it a two hour game. And now we watch our fans getting scammed constantly on Facebook with these fake people acting like us and trying to sell fake tickets. And we watch it and it fires us up more than you ever know. And so yes, we Developed our own secondary ticket market. We're face value tickets, which is going to cost us more money than we even know to try to figure it out. But you reinvent by watching your fans and figure out what is best. What can you be the best in the world at? And who do you, what do you stand for? We stand for fans first and we entertain always. And that's what we do.
- [22:08]
Mick Hunt
Freaking love it, brother. Like that just got me energized right there. Like I almost got out of my seat and gave you an amen. Like that's how strong that was. But that, that's the truth. And you know, you talk about the, the early stages of, of banana ball and, and where it has come to today. What were some of those initial challenges that you had to overcome when you, when you started the greatest show on earth?
- [22:32]
Jesse Cole
Yeah, and that's the right word. Challenges. You know, challenges. I've heard before people say problems. Now it's a challenge we overcome. Challenge the greatest people. You know, to appreciate someone's success, you got to understand their setbacks. Everyone that's successful had setbacks. And so yeah, we had, we started two tickets in our first few months. People didn't understand. So we were the lowest level college summer baseball when we started. Yeah, I got the phone call on January 15, 2016, about ready to celebrate the 10th anniversary. I don't know what I'll do then, but on that day 10 years ago almost, I got the call that we overdrafted our account and we were out of money and we had to sell our house. We emptied our savings account. We're sleeping on an air bed. We failed because we were just talking. We were talking about who we are. People hadn't felt it yet. They need to experience it now. We hadn't had a game yet, but we had. We should have found a way. We should have found a way to bring a show to someone's office or bring a show to someone to show them what it could be like. We didn't do that. So we failed. You know, first night, all you can eat. We did something no stadium's ever done. Every single ticket, all inclusive. That's crazy. But again, you start with fans first. We made every ticket. All your burgers, hot dogs, chicken sandwich, soda water, popcorn, Dessert all night free our, the food free. $15 total for the ticket. Crazy. Three hour wait. The first night they went through 10,000 pieces of meat. It was. We didn't expect that. All right. It was crazy. And so, you know, we first came on ESPN, the transmission went out literally for 10 minutes. The anchors are like, yep, the bananas can't handle us. Embarrassing. The next night, we figured it out. Our ticket system shut down. Our first Major League stadium literally shut down. Next day, we figure it out. And so we have failed every step of the way. But we don't give up, and we keep playing the game and we show up and get better every single day. And the only way you can be great is if you're willing to get through the messy to get to the great. And we go through messy every single day. When you do things people have never done before, it is going to be hard. It's going to be extremely hard. And that's what we do when we try to overcome it every single step of the way. And so, yeah, we're fortunate. It's been messy, it's been hard, and it's getting harder every day because we're doing bigger challenges. But I love that challenge because it's fun for our team to figure out how to do it.
- [24:33]
Mick Hunt
When did you know early on in life, or maybe it was later, that this was you? Not maybe the bananas, but doing the uncommon, doing the unreasonable. When did you realize that that was Jessici Cole?
- [24:49]
Jesse Cole
You're the average of, they say, the five people you surround yourself with. I surround myself with Walt Disney, P.T. barnum Bezos, Jobs, WWE, Grateful Dead, Circus LA, Saturday Night Live. I'm looking around because there's hundreds of books I have here. And so I. When I read about Walt Disney and what he did and what he accomplished and the challenge, the adversity, how he was doubted every step of the way, from animation to long form animation to the theme park to Epcot, all of it. And he said, no, I believe. I believe in. It's kind of fun to do the impossible. So when I get inspired by that and I see there is a way, there is a path, it's hard. That's. I got so inspired by that that that's who I want to be every day, do someone that does the hard things. And so, yeah, it's. And, you know, chase your energy, chase your moments. So for me, the energy, you know, I have an energy list. If I'm creating, sharing, and growing, I'm full of energy, man. If I'm doing operations and other financial numbers or spreadsheets, I'm depleted. So do what gives you energy. And if you're surrounding yourself with will inspire you and you can learn from them, then follow in those footsteps and find your own thing. And that, that's what I look for every day.
- [25:57]
Mick Hunt
I love it. I love it. For the. For the business leader that's listening right now, what's one small but radical shift that they can make right now to start creating super fans in the back.
- [26:11]
Jesse Cole
Of our fans first playbook. You know, we first had a fan's first playbook said, be patient in what you want for yourself, but be impatient in how much you give to others. What people don't know about our first six, seven, eight, nine years, we called every single fan that bought a ticket and thanked them. Every person that bought merchandise, we called and thanked them. It's unscalable now as we serve millions of fans. We went out of our way just to thank people. I started the thank you experiment in 2018, started writing thank you letters every single day. Now I do videos. Very simple thing. I pull out here and do a video and just do a. Send a video instead of an email or a text. How can you thank people? How can you spread gratitude? It's unbelievably contagious. When you spread gratitude, amazing things come back your way. So a lot of times we think about how hard it is. Well, think about the people that have helped you along the way or just people who have been there. And so today, do you want to create fans? Spread some gratitude. Do a video to someone, one of your biggest clients, one of your team members. Someone's been there and do it every day. And so I think gratitude has been something that we don't talk ton about. But even now, we continue. We just had our whole team, our players, our cast, everyone. We did thank you calls again to people buying merch and we keep it part of our system. And this crazy thing about it, it's almost the most selfish thing in the world because at the end we feel amazing for doing it, but really it's actually giving out to people. So if you're a business leader, you know, I would spread gratitude. Find a way to put it into your schedule every day, thank people for what they do. Um, and you'll be amazed at what comes back to you.
- [27:44]
Mick Hunt
Amen to that, brother. Amen to that. You know, I'm going to give you the floor to talk about some of the things that you have going on because I don't think everyone understands all that Jesse Cole does. And I think it's amazing. And I know one of the things, again, following you for as long as I have, reading your books, the the power of mentorship and coaching, especially from a leadership perspective, I say it all the time. We don't we don't always get it right. A lot of times we're lonely when you're at the top. And so having that circle that you talked about, having mentors, having coaches, I think is critically important. Talk about how one that's influenced your life. And I know that you. You do a little bit of that too, for other people, man.
- [28:26]
Jesse Cole
Well, great leaders are great teachers. And when you think about the people that have really made an impact that they're sharing, they're not afraid to share what they've learned along the way. I remember I was 23 years old, first year in Gastonia, and I read one of Mark Cuban's first small little books, and I read it in a day, and he had his email at the end of the book, I think, and I immediately emailed him. Within an hour, he emailed me back. And this is Mark Cuban. At that point, he owned, you know, the mavericks. He was doing everything right. I was like, wow, all right. You know, he shared. He shared about his journey, and he was still also reachable because he saw something or whether and what I shared my journey, that it wanted to, you know, help in some way. And so, you know, I think it's so important to you. Learn by getting your reps in. People that say, you don't learn just by reading, you learn by doing. And if you really want to be a great leader, great entrepreneur, you need to teach, you need to get your reps in. So the things that you go through, do you share them out loud? Do you share them? People, do you see how they respond to it? Are. Are you. Are you repeatable? A great leader is repeatable because they say the same things over and over and over again. Great leaders are repeaters, and great leaders are teachers. And so if you look at the greatest leaders, greatest entrepreneurs, they do that regularly. And I've been inspired by them, and I try to share every day, get my reps in. I've done over a thousand plus podcasts my first few years. Anybody that took me, it was like, we have six listeners. I'm like, I'm in. Let's do it. Like, I was. I. I was fired up because I was like, I'm gonna get my reps in on how to communicate about what we do, and I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna know how to learn how to answer questions and go different directions and see how people respond to it. Like, that helped me. And so how often are you getting your reps in? It's not about me getting on a podcast. It's about me learning and growing and that's what we all need to do.
- [30:09]
Mick Hunt
Yeah, I love it. So let's tell the people all the things you have going on, man. Keynote speaker, obviously author. You know, what are some of the things that Jesse Cole is doing in the world today?
- [30:24]
Jesse Cole
I'm still chasing moments, man. I'm still chasing the things that make me feel alive every single day. So, you know, this morning I spent three hours on ideas for the party animal show and our firefighters show and doing things that people have never seen before in a baseball field. And I get to work with our team now on how do we create that. And we've got the new team, Indianapolis Clowns and the local beach coconuts. It's bringing the beach to the world. And you know, that's what, what, that's what lifts me up. I'm fortunate I get the opportunity to speak all over the world and to amazing companies and I get to learn from them. But it's the everyday creating something brand new. It's inventing something brand new that people have never seen, never felt before. That's what I love doing. And I'm fortunate I got a platform now to share it, to share what I learned, to share the journey and hopefully inspire more people to take some chances, to not be afraid of getting uncomfortable and doing things others won't do. That's, that's what excites me every day.
- [31:17]
Mick Hunt
You do a great job of it, man. And I'm going to tell everybody to just, just some shout outs to you and some, some pub for you. Find your yellow tucks dot com. You've got a, you've got a really cool quiz out there that I think.
- [31:30]
Jesse Cole
She'S from way back.
- [31:31]
Mick Hunt
Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. I think, I think it gets people thinking, right? Like, like who, who am I? Like, like I almost tell people because I've seen a few people there that it's like, hey, it's just going to get you thinking. You're going to realize the Mrs. Right? Like, like the quiz, the assessment is a setup almost. Right? Like it's just to get you thinking of how do you show up, what do you value? Do you really put fans first? Do you put experience first? Like, so I love the setup of that, but just an amazing follow. I think everybody knows that about Jesse, but like the insights that he gives, especially if you're a business leader or if you're an entrepreneur trying to scale. You are the blueprint for that, bro. You are the blueprint. So I have to give you your.
- [32:20]
Jesse Cole
Flowers While you're here. Thank you, man. I appreciate it.
- [32:23]
Mick Hunt
Yes, sir. So speaking of following, how can people follow and find you?
- [32:28]
Jesse Cole
Just Google.
- [32:29]
Mick Hunt
Just Google me. That should be your answer.
- [32:31]
Jesse Cole
I'm pretty, pretty easy these days. But yeah, I try to share the journey constantly. You know, whether it's Instagram or LinkedIn, t everywhere I'm trying to share it. So. But yeah, we're, we're easy to find. Easier to find than people know. My, my email's out there, my phone numbers out there. I've always tried to be accessible and it's been a fun journey.
- [32:51]
Mick Hunt
Cool. Well, I'm going to get you out of here on my quick five rapid fire. You ready?
- [32:55]
Jesse Cole
Let's do it.
- [32:56]
Mick Hunt
Is it the same yellow tux over and over again or do you have like a million?
- [33:00]
Jesse Cole
I have nine yellow tuxes.
- [33:02]
Mick Hunt
Love it, Love it. What's your, what's been your favorite moment of banana balls that you like, go back to like, that sticks in your memory? Like, what's one cool moment?
- [33:12]
Jesse Cole
First ever. First ever, Clemson Football Stadium, 80,000 plus people. That was a moment because it was a big challenge. Playing in front of 80,000 people, 190ft down the left field line, putting on a huge halftime show that was with the whole Clemson band, all of our people, 200 plus performers. It was an extreme hard challenge and we overcame it. An hour and 43 minute game, not 11 home runs. The fans stayed till the end. It was the biggest crowd they had there. It was really, really, really special. So I look for those moments that are very, very hard. And that was very hard putting that on and tailgating out. And that was a special moment.
- [33:48]
Mick Hunt
And what if I told you that's my hometown? And I remember that moment too.
- [33:51]
Jesse Cole
Did you go to Death Valley? Did you actually go? I just remember that, Yeah.
- [33:55]
Mick Hunt
I lived there. I live in Greenville, South Carolina. So.
- [33:58]
Jesse Cole
Amazing. Oh, it's amazing. Yeah. That was, that was a show and a night we'll never forget.
- [34:02]
Mick Hunt
There you go. What's the biggest lesson that failure taught you?
- [34:09]
Jesse Cole
It's tough. Like that question. My mind doesn't even go like, we don't look at it as failure. So I think failure, the biggest lesson you've learned, it's not the failure, it's how you respond to it. And so if you treat failure as discovery, if you treat failure as a lesson, it will make you much stronger in the end.
- [34:28]
Mick Hunt
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. What's one thing that Jessie Cole does every day that sets your creativity juices on fire?
- [34:36]
Jesse Cole
I run every morning. So every single Morning, you know, your input affects your output. Every single morning I run and I listen to podcasts and founders acquired just about some of the greatest leaders, greatest business minds, greatest, greatest stories. When I'm done with a run, whether sometimes I can run for 8, 10, 12 miles, and I only feel it because I'm just. My mind is, like, so fired up and excited. So every morning I run and then I start writing ideas and I start journaling, and that's. I don't miss a day. I don't. I do not miss a day. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
- [35:08]
Mick Hunt
Last question. The story of Jesse Cole's been told.
- [35:13]
Jesse Cole
What's.
- [35:14]
Mick Hunt
What's the message you want to be told in that story?
- [35:20]
Jesse Cole
That's a deep question, my friend. That's a deep question. And, you know, I think that's the root of it, is how will you be remembered? What's the impact of that story? The simple thought process is just to have fun in life and not take yourself too seriously. But I think I would go find what it is that makes you stand out and amplify it. Be the best version of yourself, show up the best way you can every day, and don't be afraid what people say. Don't be afraid of criticism. All going to be misunderstood every day, every week, every month. But if you're doing what lights you up, what fires you up, you can change the world. And I believe we're getting the opportunity to do that. You are.
- [35:59]
Mick Hunt
You are the goat, as these young people say. You are the greatest to ever do it, man. You are someone that's impacting lives. You're. You're changing how we view entertainment. And I can't thank you enough just for being a blueprint for me. Like, selfishly, I just want to thank you for me, man. Like, I owe a lot to you, and I'm going to continue to owe a lot to you. And so just thank you for being an instrumental piece of my life, man.
- [36:24]
Jesse Cole
I appreciate that. It's a lot of fun. Thank you for the really kind words. That means more than you know.
- [36:28]
Mick Hunt
You got it. And to all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. That's another powerful conversation on Mick Unplugged. If this episode moved you, and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs that spark and leave a review so more people can find there, because I'm Rudy Rush, and until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay unplugged.
- [37:03]
Jesse Cole
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- [37:28]
Mick Hunt
12 month plan taxes and fees.
- [37:29]
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- [37:31]
Jesse Cole
Per month when network is busy.
- [37:32]
Ad Voice
See terms.