We’re back for the second part of our interview with the Founder and CEO of Spartan, Joe De Sena. If you missed the first episode, definitely go back and watch that. We had such a good conversation, and we covered so many topics. You’ll learn about Joe’s childhood, his adventures at college, his businesses, and how he came to the idea for Spartan.
This interview is an extension of the last one. We picked up talking to Joe about his first mountain race that he went on. It was in Canada, and it was a race that could last up to 14 days depending on the skill level of the team.
Through a series of unfortunate events, the ropes that were meant to help people descend the mountain had become unstable and a team got stuck on them. Joe’s team decided that they would find another way down. They took an unmarked route that was significantly dangerous to the health of the team. At one point, Joe actually fell off of a cliff, and, like in the movies, he grabbed a single branch to hold on. His teammates then had to create a human chain and hold out a snowshoe to him to get him back to safety.
This moment was significant to Joe, so significant that it made him think about life, and what things are like for people. He says how people used to face real, life-threatening danger often, and that feeling of almost dying is one of the things that make you feel the most alive, and from that moment forward, his perspective on life was totally changed, and that he doesn’t take anything for granted anymore. A life lesson we could all learn from.
Joe goes on to tell us about his current struggles with Spartan. The pandemic put a damper on all fitness businesses, and now that things are opening back up, Joe is having to put all the pieces back together. He said running Spartan used to bring him motivation and life, and now he wakes up everyday worrying about everything that it entails. He’s never going to give up, though, he knows that things will come back together as long as he puts his all into it.
Beyond this we talk about his motivations to keep going, what are the things that drive him. He talks about the emails he gets everyday about people who have found a new lease on life because of him and because of Spartan, and he says he can never give up on something that gives people so much hope!
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