Jesse Cole: Find Your Yellow Tux

Transcript

[0:00:27] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with Jesse Cole, author of Find Your Yellow Tux. Do you feel bored and unfulfilled, counting down the hours until you go home? Jesse is here to save you. Jesse is the owner of two multimillion dollar summer league baseball teams, The Gastonia Grizzlies and the Savanna Bananas. His motto is, “If it’s normal, do the exact opposite”. For instance, don’t start with the baseball game, start with a circus, then let it explode into a baseball game. In this episode, Jesse shares his experiences in creating an amazing life by doing the unexpected. In this episode, Jesse shares his stories of how he created an amazing life by doing the unexpected. By the end of this episode, you’ll know how to reignite your life and excel in your business. Now, here is our conversation with Jesse Cole.

[0:01:54] Jesse Cole: I’ll never forget, it was my first job, my first day out of college, I took the job as the general manager of the Gastonia Grizzlies, a college summer baseball team right outside of Charlotte North Carolina and I showed up that first day and I found out the real numbers. I found out that the team had only averaged 200 fans a game, I found out that the team had lost over $150,000 a year and I found that there was only $268 in the bank account and we had three full time employees and payroll was on Friday. I sat there, I said, “This is absolutely crazy!” I started to dig a little bit and I found out the team had been there for seven years and no one had been going to the games, no one cared, I made 10 phone calls that first day and seven people had never heard of the team, two of them said they would never work with us and one person hung up on me. It was that moment that I realized, we had a serious problem with our business and over the next 10 years, I realized, kind of, what that problem was and how to really stand out and be different and the challenge was, that people weren’t interested in the team because it was boring. I mean, the reality was normal, they weren’t doing anything special, they weren’t creating attention. It was a serious problem. From that moment on, I started learning how to think different, you know, how to learn from different people and how to really go outrageous with everything we were doing. That moment kind of set the stage for the next 10 years for some really big moments with our new team, the Savanna Bananas. But more than anything, you know, it happened a few years ago, great ‘aha moment’, I was driving into the ballpark and fortunate to have my office here at the stadium but I’m driving in and I’m noticing bumper to bumper traffic on the other side. I realized, I started thinking, every day, these people are going in bumper to bumper traffic, they’re working the nine to five and I’m here going against traffic, kind of creating my own path and working the hours when I want to. I started to realize that there were millions of people that are stuck every single day and they’re not creating their own path and they’re just going with what they’re supposed to be doing. That’s when, really, this whole ‘find your yellow tux’ theme came and you know, as you know, I wear a yellow tux, I own six of them. It’s become kind of this way to stand out and be different and be unique.

[0:03:57] Charlie Hoehn: Wow. I want to dig in a little bit. You looked at the numbers for this baseball team and there was less than $300 in the bank account. A lot of people would have seen that and been like, “Time to jump ship, time to go get a new job”.

[0:04:16] Jesse Cole: 100%.

[0:04:16] Charlie Hoehn: Right? You did not. Why didn’t you do that? Are you that type of person always or why were you motivated by that?

[0:04:24] Jesse Cole: I think, you know, if you look at some of the greatest coaches of all time, you know, they want to come on when there’s actually a challenge, you look at Bill Belechek and all these – they want to come and join a team that they can actually create something and they can make something. For me, I don’t want to join a team that’s won three championships, that’s making thousands of dollars. I thought, wow, this is an opportunity to really create something special. You know what? We had nothing to lose. I think a lot of times, businesses don’t take that mindset. They try to maintain, they try to sustain, where they’re at but if they take that mindset out, you know what? We have nothing to lose, we’re going to get creative, we’re going to get crazy with some of our things. For me, yeah, it would have been much easier to run and go take a normal job, you know, I’ll tell you, I didn’t pay myself for a couple of months, there was no money in our account. But it was that excitement to create something that made it all worth it. I think that’s what everyone’s looking for is purpose. I had purpose and I still do every single day.

[0:05:13] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, that’s crystal clear in the conversations we’ve had that you have that enthusiasm, excitement, sense of drive and purpose. I’d imagine though, in those early days that excitement would falter from time to time because it is such a big challenge. Can you tell me what those early days were like where you were trying to drum up attention and you were experimenting and what kind of –

[0:05:40] Jesse Cole: Jeez, you know, the biggest thing, I remember the phone call I made to the owner of the team and I said, “Ken, we’re no longer going to be a baseball team” and he goes, “What are you talking about?” I go, “We’re going to be a circus, I got, it’s going to be all about entertainment”. He goes, “But that’s not what we are” and I go, “Well, the reality is, no one’s been caring about a baseball team”. He goes, “What do you have in mind?” I said, “Well, our players are going to do choreograph dances every game, we’re going to have a grandma beauty pageant”. “I’m going to get in the dunk tank every game and it’s going to be a circus”. He laughed and said, “I guess we got nothing to lose” and I’ll tell you what we did. And I believe this morning, you need to continue to try new things. I think it was Will Ferrell hilariously which recently said in his commencing speech. He said, “You got to keep throwing darts at the dart board, you’ll eventually hit the bulls eye”. For us, what we kept doing was literally trying crazy things, we had a flatulence fund night where we gave away whoopee cushions and had a bean burrito heating contest on the field. We had a salute to underwear night where we actually threw grizzlies underwear in the crowd and people that wore their underwear on the outside got a free ticket. It was the most un-family friendly night we could ever have and believe me, both those promotions failed miserably. But we learned and more than anything, we created attention. I mean, back then, we offered George Bush an internship after he lost his – well, he was no longer the president. You know, we just started thinking crazy and when everyone started noticing, you know what? These guys are fun, let’s give them a chance. When they come to the game and they would see ridiculous promotions and people getting pied and you know, now when they see our senior citizen dance team called the Banana Nana’s, you know, doing uptown funk in the middle of the game, they’re like, “You know what? We’re going to escape and have fun”. And you know, it’s been a lot of trials, a lot of failures but when you come to our games, it’s absolutely ridiculous. I think, the reality is, people in their life, they need to stand out and do things differently. You know, it’s that much fun and I think we all need a little bit more fun in our lives.

[0:07:24] Charlie Hoehn: What was your favorite moment, the favorite experiment that you tried? That it could either have been your breakthrough moment or it could have been just something that you loved.

[0:07:34] Jesse Cole: You know, my breakthrough moment happened in 2011 and I’ll say, before this. I mean, we tried, we’ve given away colon cleansings, we’ve given away port-a-johns, I mean, we’ve done it all. But my breakthrough moment happened in 2011 and this was about four years already into our – what we were doing and we were having fun, the crowds were going crazy, we did a ‘Dig to China Night’ where we literally buried in the infield dirt, a one-way flight to China but no return flight, no accommodations, just a one way flight to China. I mean, we just did ridiculous things. I know the crowds were loving it but I was like, you know, there’s got to be something more and you know, what I did is in 2011, I saw the Simon Sinek, ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action’ video, I was in the middle of a conference and I sprinted out of the conference. Literally, left the conference and I started watching it over and over again. I was like, “You know what? I understand what we’re doing, I understand how we’re doing it but I don’t understand why”. You know, “I know people need fun but it’s got to be more than that”. I’ll never forget the moment that happened in a game in 2011 season. You know, we found out that someone in our community, Nickel Brian is 21 years old, he was a celebrity in our community, he was at high school, everyone loved him in high school and he went off to Afghanistan and unfortunately he was killed. I’ll never forget, I had an intern come up to me and said, “Jesse, I’m very close to the family, we got to do something”. I said, “Definitely”. We looked two weeks ahead, we had our ‘Salute the Troops Night’. I’ll never forget, we had 3,700 people come to the stadium and in the first inning, we stopped the game, we invited the entire family, the mother, the father, the grandmother, the sister, the girlfriend. We brought them down to the field and we stopped the game, had everyone stand and we brought two marines, brought a framed jersey of Nickel Brian to them and for two minutes, we read this tribute to Nick. You could hear a pin drop in the stadium, 3,700 people silent. At that moment, when the mother walked off the field, she gave me the biggest hug I’ve ever received and I walked off in my office and I just lost it. It was that moment that I realized, really, why we’re doing what we’re doing and it’s to bring people together and create a family and treat them like a family and that’s when it really created a special moment for me. Now, that’s how developed our business name, Fans First Entertainment. Everything we do is for the fans to bring them together. I know I went a different direction than all the colon cleansing and the port-a-johns but really, that was the moment that stood out. Now, there’s moments like that happen every single year where families come to us and hug us and say, “You won’t believe what you’ve done for our family and that means everything for us”.

[0:09:55] Charlie Hoehn: That was a beautiful story Jesse and what I’m curious about, what does your book contain? Is it these stories or is it the idea of pursuing your passion the way that you’ve done?

[0:10:10] Jesse Cole: You know, here is the big thing. The book title is Find your Yellow Tux and it’s How to be Successful by Standing Out. You know, as I’ll share with you, I have six tuxedos, yellow tuxedos, I proposed in a yellow tuxedo, thank goodness she said, “Yes”. You know, that’s who I am, but the reality is what I believe it means, it’s – everyone has something that makes them stand out and it’s about finding your best version of yourself and what I believe, that’s not only just for yourself but it’s also for your business. Over the last 10 years in this crazy business that we’ve been in and fortunate to have a lot of success, we’ve seen the things that have worked and I believe it’s so applicable to everyone on really, how to be different, find your own self and stand out and that’s the same thing for your business. That’s what this book is and one of the big premises is, “Whatever’s normal, do the exact opposite”, you know, normal gets normal results and if people just look at just kind of playing it by the book, you know, I believe more than anything, one of my mentors Bill Veck says, “I try not to break the rules but merely test their elasticity”. Well, I love Bill Veck but I’ll tell you, we break the rules when it comes to a lot of things. I think that’s the key in life, if you really want to have purpose and fulfillment. That’s what we’re having fun with and I know this book is going to be very entertaining and tell a lot of ridiculous stories but it’s bigger than that.

[0:11:18] Charlie Hoehn: How do we really apply this stuff? Walk me through what this actually looks like because obviously there are some times that you don t’ break the rules, you’re probably not running through red lights and stuff. Bring me through – if you were mentoring somebody right now on how to ‘find their yellow tux’. How would you do it and use me as your example?

[0:11:43] Jesse Cole: Perfect. Well I’d start with what business are you in right now and I think this is what I call the ‘mirror moment’. The great example is from Jerry McGuire, the movie opens up and what he does. He runs out and he’s at home all night and he’s coming up with a memo for changing the way that the business for agents were. Basically, what they were was all about more clients, more money. He wanted to be less clients, more money because it had a better – it applied better to him. The reality is, I just tell everyone and say, “What frustrates you about your business? What frustrates you about your industry as a whole?” I believe, the best businesses start by that. For us, “What frustrate us?” Baseball was too long, too slow, too boring and people weren’t interested anymore. We changed the game on what baseball should be like. For an individual, what business it is. How did Uber start? Airbnb, all the best companies start that way. I believe it’s very applicable for a business, if you look at yourself, you know, what’s frustrating you in a given day? You know, your nine-to-five, what’s frustrating you about your business, are you just going through the motions? Are there certain things that are really bothering you, that you don’t feel passion for it, you don’t feel purpose? I think that’s the starting point, I call it a mirror moment. Once you get there, now, the question is, what’s the next step and the next step I believe more than anything is become a sponge.

[0:12:55] Charlie Hoehn: Hang on, one second Jesse, before we get on to the next step. How do you know, there’s always some tedium things that you don’t want to deal with in your job, right? Like, you try and delegate those or automate them but sometimes it’s just the nature of the job. How do you know when you’re looking at the right things that you have a problem with? Like, is it because it’s big picture stuff, or is it, do you get in the weeds? Explain that a bit more.

[0:13:25] Jesse Cole: Well, I think you open this up, talking to you, I mean, Charlie, your book “Played Away” is perfect and I think the reality is, you had your mirror moment, you realize what happened when you were getting sick, when you literally couldn’t, I mean, you had serious anxiety because of what was going on. I mean, that realized for you that that wasn’t probably the right thing you should be in at that point. Now, not everyone’s going to go through the challenges that you went through but when you realized that moment, there’s something wrong, you know, you’re having to work so hard, you had to take certain things to keep you going. I mean, not everyone has those experiences but I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of people that go home and they’re not that excited about their job, they’re just thinking about, I think most people’s worst day is Monday’s. That’s a terrible thing, what’s the suicide rate the found out on Monday’s is higher than any time That’s crazy to me. That’s a point you got to look at yourself. I know this is very deep and it sounds – I think that’s a reality. Literally, look, is this what I want to be doing? Am I telling people to change their jobs? Maybe change what they’re doing in their job? Maybe they’re in the wrong field. It’s not creating excitement and passion. Are they watching the clock during the day or are they losing track of time? You know, those are things that I think about and I think people should think about.

[0:14:27] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I think just modifying the wording here a little bit. It’s not that just that you think about them, it’s that you’re aware of how you feel while you’re doing things. Certainly, you can’t always feel super excited, passionate and whatever, 100% of the time. But you have enough of that that you recognized that that is guiding you in the right direction.

[0:14:52] Jesse Cole: Well, in a given day, think about your job in a given day. If your nine to five, what moments during the day do you love the most? What moments are you having the most fun laughing? Those are the things that I started to think about, I realized this for myself. You know, I realized recently, my creating and working with our videographer and creating movies and coming up with new things to put out, I have the time of my life doing that. I realized, realize what you’re bad at and I think this is going into the best moment, a very important part. Realize the things that you don’t enjoy and that you’re not good at and are you putting out fires every day? I mean, it gets so obvious that a lot of times during the day, you’re doing things that you just aren’t good at. For me, I’m terrible at operations. I can’t put anything up around this ballpark, it takes me hours so don’t do that, you need to hire people or work with people that can do that. That’s looking from a business perspective but you know, I think it would be very obvious when your given day, what was the best part of your day. And if it’s lunch or if it’s going home and having a couple of beers, you may need to look at something else.

[0:15:45] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, agreed. Why does this really matter for whoever’s listening to think about this and do this stuff now or today or this week? What happens if they’re like, you know, I’m just getting through the next three to six to 12 months like this is just a stage in my life. Are there situations where you would recommend, yeah, put it on hold or is this an urgent matter?

[0:16:15] Jesse Cole: You know, it depends on how urgent you feel your happiness is. I mean, most people I think, they’re content with their jobs, they’re content, they’re happy, they’re going with it. But I think when you start to have real purpose and excitement and I think people should come to work on fire, I think they should just absolutely love what they do, you know? I think that’s a challenge for people. I don’t know if it’s a sense of urgency right now but I think you know, if you read the book and you see, it’s like wow, there is something missing a little bit, start just being aware and I think Charlie, you mentioned it before, it’s self-awareness, you know? Looking at yourself and hey, is this what I’m the best at? Is this what I can really add the most to my job or what I’m doing? You know, this is getting obviously serious but I mean, it should be fun, I mean, for instance, I love talking about this stuff, it’s exciting. I mean, you know, the other day, we adopted a pig and we literally had a pig at our ballpark because the team came out with the name Making Bacon so we did a PSA to Sarah McLachlan’s video about saving the dogs to save the pigs and saying stop making bacon. You know, that was the most fun I had all day and you know what? The video went out and people loved it, that’s what it’s about for us. Now, I’m not saying, if you’re an accountant in a law firm, you can start bringing in a pig to the office but you know what? You can do things that are kind of ridiculous and have fun. When you go home, do you have stories about your day? How many times did your wife say or your husband say, how’s your day? It was okay. You know, start creating those moments, create those stories, it makes life worth it.

[0:17:42] Charlie Hoehn: Author Hour is sponsored by Book in a Box. For anyone who has a great idea for a book but doesn’t have the time or patience to sit down and type it out, Book in a Box has created a new way to help you painlessly publish your book. Instead of sitting at a computer and typing for a year, hoping everything works out, Book in a Box takes you through a structured interview process that gets your ideas out of your head and into a book in just a few months. To learn more, head over to Bookinabox.com and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. Don’t let another year go by where you put off writing your book. After the first time we talked Jesse, I remember having this conversation with my wife. I was like, “I mean Jesse’s our age. Why can’t we own a baseball field or something like that?” and you know, we’ve made it a part of our weekly process to talk about what are we building? What are we building toward and we, to your next point of becoming a sponge, once we decide on something we spend the next week or two just being a sponge on that topic. So for instance, we thought, “Man, co-working space is like…” to your point of what bothers you about your industry, co-working spaces kinda bugged me. They really bug me the way that they are set up. I think they need to be mixed in with fun. Like you said, opportunities to inject a quick dopamine hit of fun and community throughout the day. But the more I researched it, the more I was a sponge, I realize now that no, that is not something I want to get into because that’s not what most people value. That’s not why they pay for it so I wouldn’t be a fun industry to go into. So, in any case be a sponge.

[0:19:36] Jesse Cole: Well I guess what I would say on that Charlie, I just want to say what I love about you is that the first time we talked, you are living by what you stand for. I mean literary we are talking and you’re out rock climbing, building or whatever it is. I never even heard of them and you’re there and your whole concept about playing and having fun and how that’s added so much to your life, you’re living it and I think if you could be the spokesperson for playing or fun, I mean that’s obviously, it gives you a lot of joy and it’s you and it’s authentic. You weren’t faking it, you were there literary working out climbing rocks and having fun and so I think that’s the key. It’s “What do you love doing?” A great example in the book, The Happiness Equation, it’s called the Saturday Morning Test and I referenced this in the book. It’s like if you have nothing to do on a Saturday morning, what do you want to do? And that’s such a great way of looking at what you should be doing with your life or at least what you should try as a side hustle.

[0:20:25] Charlie Hoehn: Agreed, 100%. I ask people a similar question which is what did you do when you’re a kid when you weren’t being judged, graded, paid for it, what did you keep turning to repeatedly voluntarily and I’m betting Jesse that your childhood looked quite similar to what you are doing now. Even though everything is within the baseball category. I’m betting you were a very creative person growing up that you were doing this funny quirky mischievous things practical jokes that type of thing, right?

[0:21:00] Jesse Cole: 100%, we made videos, we had fun but we did ridiculous things in school that our teachers from high school still talk about and that was part of what we did but the reality of what I thought I was going to do, I played baseball. I put all my energy into baseball. I did everything. I was fortunate to get a college scholarship but then my arm got torn to pieces and I was done and the reality is, you think you are the best at something and plan all of it but you know what? Things change. And baseball, it’s so funny I’m probably the only baseball owner in the country that says, “You know what? Baseball has a serious challenge, it’s long, slow and boring” and I don’t love baseball like I used to. I love entertaining fans so you know it does pivot and I think the key is just being able to be self-aware and realize that so-

[0:21:37] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, no, I think you are on the cutting edge of what we are starting to see more and more in Major League Baseball and I am curious to see your perspective on this but when Maguire and Sosa and all of those guys were just dropping bombs during the steroid era, I mean the same thing happened in major league baseball that’s happened with your team which is it went from being a dead sport that wasn’t selling tickets to every single game being sold out because people found it so entertaining finally and –

[0:22:12] Jesse Cole: Yeah and then it went away again.

[0:22:14] Charlie Hoehn: Then it went away.

[0:22:15] Jesse Cole: Yeah, now if you watch a game everyone is standing behind home plate and they are looking at their phones and not even watching the game.

[0:22:19] Charlie Hoehn: Right, so I would rather actually talk about how can what you’ve done be applied to not only major league baseball but other businesses and industries that have gotten stale and so keep guiding me through that process like what can others really learn from what you guys have done in transforming something that was previously boring and no one was showing up for?

[0:22:47] Jesse Cole: You know I say this all the time but it’s “What business are you in but what business are you really in”, and I think a lot of businesses can’t answer that question. They are saying that they’re an accountant, they’re just about accounting and I do think to every degree, every business is in the time business and they need to understand that. Are you making people’s time better, or are you taking away time, are you giving them time? And once you understand how you help people’s time and effect that then you can start to look at what business you’re really in. So for us, we realize that “Hey, we have to give a 100% entertainment because people want to be entertained”. They want to escape, they don’t want to watch baseball. So we changed that into a whole different set out there. With a regular business, I mean think about it in the same sense of what frustrates you about your business. I mean I’ll tell you, I look at law firms and accountants and I’m like, you know it’s so over the top professional and formal and you know what? Now as people are communicating more, social media, people love now the fact that things aren’t politically correct all the time. So if you are a law firm, you are this, “How can you relate to people? How can you make it more interesting?” You know I just talked to a home builder the other day and when people buy a house, it’s not even really celebrated by the home builder or the realtor. They may get you a bottle of champagne or something. Well they bring their whole –

[0:23:56] Charlie Hoehn: Or worst the realtor, I have seen them put up, this is so ridiculous, I mean I watched it first hand, he put up a picture of himself on the sign and he said his name did it again. So like, “John did it again”.

[0:24:12] Jesse Cole: Yeah, it’s about him.

[0:24:13] Charlie Hoehn: That’s really offensive.

[0:24:15] Jesse Cole: Yeah, 100%, you know that’s how businesses look at it. It’s about them, it’s not you know we look at this, what is the perfect experience for your customer? And if you can think about that from the beginning, from the first time they see your website, from the first moment they answer their phone, I mean I tell a lot of these stories in our book but we literary go all the way to the beginning and then when people show up to our stadium, they are going to see people dressed up as penguin costumes. Why? Because they are our parking penguins. They are dressed up as penguins and they’re parking people. Does it make any sense? , but if I am coming to a game and I see someone dressed as a penguin parking, me, I think that’s funny you know? And then when they keep walking, what are they going to see? We have a 30 piece pep band I mean in baseball, that you don’t have pep band in baseball. We have a 30 piece pep band playing Uptown Funk or Rocky as you’re walking in. Then people are dressed in banana costumes and as they walk through the gate, The Banana Nanas, our senior citizen dance team are doing a Justin Timberlake dance. That’s all before you even get into the stadium and if you think about that for your perfect experience for your customer, you can change the way people think about your business and I think that’s a great starting point.

[0:25:14] Charlie Hoehn: That’s really good. So tell me more of the transformative stuff that you’ve seen since you’ve implemented all of this circus fun into baseball. What have been some of your – you told a great one about the mom who hugged you after you honored her son. Tell me some of the other transformative things that have happened because of this that wouldn’t have happened if you just maintained the status quo?

[0:25:44] Jesse Cole: You know it goes back to ‘the fans first’ and I’ll never forget. I didn’t share the story here in Savanah but when we came here on October 5th a couple of years ago, the former team had cut the phone lines, they’d cut the internet lines and we had a picnic table on a storage shed that we were working at and for six months, we worked so hard on trying to market the team and say, “You know what? We are going to do all of these crazy things” but no one cared. Because it was going from professional baseball to college summer baseball, no one cared. It got so bad that I’ll never forget the phone call I got in January and said, “Jesse we’re completely out of money” and my wife and I looked at each other. We were driving back from my friend’s wedding and she turned to me and said, “Jesse we have to sell our house. That’s the only option we have”. So we sold our house that we had in Charlotte with our other team and we literary emptied out our savings account. We found this terrible duplex down here in Savanah and we went all in and at that point, we realized you know what? We’ve got to create some attention and so when we had the opportunity to name the team and we went with Bananas we said, “All right, we can go crazy”. Most teams are going animals, we went with Savanah Bananas and we said we are going to go all out in the marketing. We’re going to have a mascot named Split, I said we’re going to have the Banana Nanas. We’re going to have a promotion where we throw bananas from the top deck and it’s called “Banana in the Pants” where you catch a banana. We thought about all of these crazy things that you could do and all of a sudden, they started noticing and that’s the perfect experience for your customer, we realized people were frustrated going to sporting events and paying and getting nickeled and dimed. So we made one ticket price, $15 and that includes all you can eat, all your food, all night and the ticket. So literary, we tried to change the market from that perspective. So from that, the attention, the marketing, everyone paid attention. We are ready to go and then this is where the moment really happened. Again on opening night, we had sold out the first six or seven games in advance, in opening night we are ready to go and it starts pouring and it pours. 7:00 to 7:30, we are not going to start, maybe going to start late and 4,000 people kept coming and they didn’t stop. They just kept coming and they waiting until we started the game at 9:00 and it was a really special moment but what happened at 11:00, a young woman came up to me and she said, this was like in the 8th or 9th inning, it’s 11:00 at night. She said, “Could you please get me a signed baseball?” and I said, “We’ll do what we can. You know we believe in that” and she’s like, “It would really mean a lot to me” and I said, “Okay” and she’s like: “My fiancé had been coming to this ball park every single opening night since he was a kid and he just passed away and it would mean the world to me. I’m here with his family just to get a signed baseball” and I said, “Of course, of course” and she said, “And my fiancé’s name was Drew Moody and you have a player on your roster named Drew Moody” and I was like shook and after that I said, “Wow” and Drew wasn’t with us yet but his younger brother, Logan Moody, 18 years old was with us. So I ran into the dugout in the middle at the end of the game and I said, “Logan can you get this signed” and I told him the story. He got it signed, an 18 year old went up there sat in the middle of the bleachers with her for an entire inning and as he sat with her, he gave her the signed baseball. I watched as they hugged each other and he walked by and I said, “Logan that was really special” he goes, “Fans first right?” and he understood what it was about. An 18 year old kid after our first game was understanding about the impression and the differences that we make and that was the transformational moment. It just keeps happening. You know when you create those moments you know you are making a real difference.

[0:28:54] Charlie Hoehn: Wow that’s powerful. I really wish everybody knew and applied the fans first philosophy. I mean before this interview you mentioned Apple and that is their philosophy is “customers first, users first, people first” everything is designed from that perspective.

[0:29:19] Jesse Cole: Yeah and design. That’s the keyword, design. You know they think about every single thing and that design process to be that perfect experience.

[0:29:26] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah and why don’t more people pick up on this stuff Jesse?

[0:29:31] Jesse Cole: You know I think it’s almost so obvious but it takes a lot of work. I think one of the biggest challenges and I have a whole chapter about this in my book about simplifying, it is so hard to simplify but Steve Jobs said it best, “If you could simplify things it could move mountains” and the reality is that’s what the greatest companies have done and so when we’ve simplified it to ‘Fans First’, everyone in our staff whether it’s their first day, they understand it’s about fans first. And what does that mean to them? It means “Take care of people”, and we don’t have this long mission statement, this complex thing on what we’re supposed to do. It’s not about profit, it’s not about any of that, it’s simplifying and if you simplify your mission and what you stand for, it’s very easy to put that into your whole system and your whole business. So it’s a challenge, I think you’ve got to sit down and say, “Hey why are we doing this? What’s the point? How can we make this easy?” How, if we have a part time staff join us within a day, they know exactly what we’re about and how to do it? And it takes some time but for us, that’s been the key. It’s simplifying it.

[0:30:27] Charlie Hoehn: So give our listeners a challenge, speaking of challenges, what is the one thing that they can do today or this week that’s from your book, Find Your Yellow Tux, that can change their life?

[0:30:42] Jesse Cole: Ooh, I love that question Charlie. I love that question. If you want to change your life, you have to have a mirror moment first and that’s why after the intro, I opened the book with a mirror moment and you have to literary look at yourself and say, “Hey what’s frustrating me? What’s bothering me? What am I missing? Why do I feel stuck? Why are there moments that I feel stale?” And just think about that and you know what? Even just write it down, write some simple things and then from there, what moments fire you up? What do you get most excited about? When you’re pumped to go into work, what are you doing that day? Or if you are not pumped going to work ever that’s a moment that could change your life because you realize you are doing the wrong thing. So it’s what frustrates you and what fires you up, it sounds so simple but for me, I keep doing it every single day. I realize sometimes I am doing things I don’t want to be doing or I shouldn’t be doing and I try to pivot and find more ways in my day to do things I absolutely love and it fires me up and I look at the clock and I realize, “Whoa I am doing it for three hours” I didn’t even know that. I think that’s a good starting point.

[0:31:41] Charlie Hoehn: That’s a great starting point and to do it every day that is really powerful because and to go back to Apple, and Steve Jobs would say, if there were too many days in a row where I didn’t like what I was doing, I would realize it was time for a change and I think we just don’t ask ourselves those questions on a daily basis. So I think that’s an excellent challenge.

[0:32:05] Jesse Cole: And I think the reality Charlie is because we get comfortable. You know I say it to my own staff all the time, you know, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable”. Every single day are you challenging yourself, are you trying new stuff? If you are constantly comfortable with what you’re doing you are not growing and you’re going to be comfortable sustaining and maintaining what you’re doing and you’re not going to be doing things that fire you up. So I think that is a key lesson as well.

[0:32:24] Charlie Hoehn: When was the last time you were uncomfortable?

[0:32:26] Jesse Cole: Every day. I mean the reality is what I just did is I’ve launched this, Find Your Yellow Tux and I’m doing a podcast and I am putting myself out there. I am recording one minute boosts every day. I am literary every day putting myself out there in something I am not used to doing. I used to be on the field in front of 4,000 fans and putting on crazy promotions and shows and pieing fans in the crowd. I am used to that but I am not used to recording myself. Throwing myself on Facebook and hoping people will love it but you know what? It is challenging me. It’s challenged me to reach out to people that are better than me. I think how many times in a day that someone reaches out to someone that’s better than you and try to learn from them. For me, I read hundreds of books, but the reality is me reaching out to these people that have achieved great success, I’m uncomfortable doing that because you’re asking. You’re having to sell yourself and you’re having to convince them to work with you. So those are things I do every day.

[0:33:12] Charlie Hoehn: Awesome, how can our listeners connect with you, follow you and come to one of your games?

[0:33:19] Jesse Cole: Findyouryellowtux.com. I’m on there as well and Yellow Tux Jesse on Twitter and Facebook, The Yellow Tux Guy. But you know we’d love to have you obviously in Savanah, the Savanah Bananas were fortunate. We have sold out 32 straight games and it’s been a circus at the ball park but reach out to me. We’ll see what we could do, we’d love to have you so that’s the best way.

[0:33:40] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, so what should Author Hour listeners say if they end up actually legitimately going to a Savanah Bananas game and how can they just say hey to you? Just hit you up on Twitter I guess?

[0:33:53] Jesse Cole: Yes, hit me up on Twitter or on my website and just know, if you are going to hit me up to come to a game we’re going to put you on the field and you are going to do something absolutely outrageous so just be ready for that.

[0:34:03] Charlie Hoehn: Awesome, Jesse this was great. Thanks man.

[0:34:05] Jesse Cole: Thanks a lot Charlie.

[0:34:08] Charlie Hoehn: Many thanks to Jesse Cole for being on the show. You can buy his book, Find Your Yellow Tux on amazon.com. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about book with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.