Show Notes

• Buying a baseball team
• What is banana ball?
• The yellow tux, and standing out in a world full of sameness
• 10-15 unique experiences… per night!
• Fostering a culture of creativity and positive energy
• Fans First
• The fun factor
• Getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame
• Bananas Foster

Connect With Jesse Cole

✩ Website: https://www.thesavannahbananas.com/
✩ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yellowtuxjesse
✩ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesavbananas
✩ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/yellowtuxjesse
✩ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YellowTuxJesse/
✩ LinkedIn: https://www.instagram.com/yellowtuxjesse

Additional Resources

✩ Book: Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful by Standing Out
✩ Book: Fans First: Change The Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience
✩ Book: Banana Ball: The Unbelievably True Story of the Savannah Bananas

Summary

Jesse Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas. He’s fanatic about fandom and launched the Savannah Bananas with one mission: to spark a fan-focused movement. Jesse is also a keynote speaker and the author of three bestselling books, and he owns seven yellow tuxedos! He discusses what inspired him to buy a baseball team, and how we can all put fans first and inject more fun into our businesses.

Full Transcript

Brian

Welcome to another episode of LifeExcellence with Brian Bartes. Join me as I talk with amazing athletes, entrepreneurs, authors, entertainers, and others who have achieved excellence in their chosen field so you can learn their tools, techniques and strategies for improving performance and achieving greater success.

Jesse Cole is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas. He’s fanatic about fandom and launched the Savannah Bananas with one mission: to spark a fan focused movement, whether at the ballpark, on stage delivering keynotes, writing books, or on social media platforms like Instagram, where the Bananas currently have more than 2.2 million followers. Jesse continues to entertain fans around the world. The Bananas have sold out every game since their first season in 2016 and have a current wait list for tickets of over one million people. They’ve entertained millions of fans in Savannah, Georgia and at ballparks around the country on their Banana Ball Tour. ESPN calls the Bananas the greatest show in baseball. Jesse is the proud inventor of Banana Ball and Dolce and Banana underwear and the not so proud promoter of the Human Horse Race and Flatulence Fun Night. He’s a raving fan of his wife, Emily, their three children, and peerless promoters like Walt Disney, PT Barnum and Bill Veeck. Jessie is also the author of three bestselling books and he owns seven yellow tuxedos. If you’re ready to abandon normal and change the game, then strap yourself in as Jessie peels back the curtain and shares how you can find joy and success in everything you do. Yellow, Jesse, and thanks for joining us on LifeExcellence.

Jesse

Excited to be with you.

Brian

It’s great to have you Jesse. When you started the Savannah Bananas, you were highly criticized by virtually everyone. I think with the exception of your wife, Emily, I don’t think anyone thought you were going to succeed; not the city of Savannah, nor anyone in the baseball community. How are you able to persevere in spite of the deck being stacked against you, so to speak? What do you say to people who have an idea that isn’t necessarily embraced by those around them?

Jesse

Well, first of all, I don’t blame anybody. The reality is baseball never succeeded in Savannah, there was professional baseball for 90 years, no one was coming out to the games, the lowest attendance, the minor league team left, and we had no track record. We had a small college summer team in Gastonia, I think I was 31 years old at the time, my wife was 28, we had a 24-year-old team president, and three 22-year-olds straight out of college, why would we be successful? But I think the big difference is that we had a very big vision and we believed that if we made baseball fun, if we made baseball a fan experience, all about the fans – Fans First – if we eliminated all the friction and the frustration points and the long, slow, boring parts of baseball, that more people would come out – we believed in that. The problem was no one had experienced it. So we were talking, talking, talking and we only sold a handful tickets. That’s when my wife and I had to sell our house, empty out our savings account, we were sleeping on an air bed. So the number one thing that I think led us through this was belief; we believed in a vision, we believed that if we did something dramatically different than everyone else, that it would have different results. I always say whatever is normal, do the exact opposite; normal is going to get you normal results. Often, if you’re not getting criticized, you’re playing it too safe. So we got criticized because of the name, we got criticized for now playing only Banana Ball, we get criticized for playing all over the country, we get criticized for almost everything. And I think it’s because we’re doing something that other people aren’t doing so it is easier to criticize.

Brian

I love the concept of doing the opposite of what everybody else is doing. I say if you don’t know what to do, just do the opposite of what everybody else is doing. That’s a pretty good starting point, whether we’re talking about investing or business ideas or health or any number of other ideas. For those listening or watching, if you aren’t familiar with the Bananas – obviously there are millions of people who follow you on social media who attend games, not just in Savannah, Georgia, but around the country – but for those of us listeners and viewers who aren’t familiar with the Bananas, Jessie help us to get a sense of what Banana Ball is. I guess everybody knows baseball and understands basically the rules of baseball but what are a few of the rules of Banana Ball that distinguish it from conventional baseball?

Jesse

It’s definitely not baseball. It is Banana Ball. And yes, so I mean, we put ourselves in our fan’s shoes, and we started realizing that even when we played the back in the day, traditional baseball fans were still leaving games early. So we said what are we doing to make it a different game and so we created Banana Ball: a two hour time limit, if you win the inning, you get a point. So there are walk-offs every single inning, batters can steal first, if a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out. That’s a big rule that’s very popular. And there are no walks, there are no mound visits, there’s no bunting, if you bunt you are thrown out of the game. The whole game is built on speed and entertainment. We had over 600 trick plays on the tour last year, I mean, it’s really, really fast paced and entertaining and every game is under two hours. We have 98% of our fans stay to the last pitch. It’s unbelievable to watch, they’re standing up, because it always comes down to the last inning because of the way we built the rules. I feel like a kid in a candy store, I see everything that I love about the game and I’m creating it and adding new things. It’s like Willy Wonka, it’s like, well, this would be great, this would be great. I mean, we added the golden batter rule this year, now in the ninth inning, no matter what the situation is, your best hitter could come back up. So even if he just got out in the eighth inning, he can come back up in the line-up; we’re just trying to make the game as exciting as possible.

Brian

Well, it definitely is exciting, which is sort of the opposite of the stereotypical baseball game where you’re sitting around a lot, baseball players are standing around a lot. For our listeners and viewers, if you haven’t seen Banana Ball yet, and the Savannah Bananas, just Google it and you will be watching it for hours and be entertained for hours. Just out of curiosity, you mentioned the fans being able to catch the fly ball and that’s an out, how often does that occur in a typical game?

Jesse

That happened over 60 times last year over 16 games. So literally, one game, a 15-year-old kid caught a ball to win the game in North Carolina. It was unbelievable. So fans are bringing their gloves, they’re ready to go. They’re watching every pitch. Again, we want it “fans first;” how do you get the fans involved in the game. Even this past year now fans can challenge a ruling on the play on the field, one play a game. If they don’t like it, the fans can actually challenge it. We’re just really trying to get them involved, that’s what fans first is and that’s how we make every decision for our company.

Brian

Oh, that’s fantastic. Jesse, give us some of the backstory. What inspired you to buy a baseball team? I mean, that’s kind of a crazy idea. What was it like early on? You talked a little bit about that. You mentioned mortgaging your house and some other things you needed to do. But why a baseball team of all things?

Jesse

I think mostly just my wife and I thought it’d be a great decision the first year of marriage to go into $1.8 million in debt, we thought that would be a really smart way to start are start a life together. We had worked with our team in Gastonia for many years, that was a small suburb of Charlotte. I started there when I was 23 years old as a GM with $268 in the bank account, two hundred fans coming to the game. They were one of the worst teams in all of college summer baseball, we built them to be fourth in the country in attendance, selling out games, we learned a lot. We learned so much from PT Barnum and Walt Disney and Bill Veeck and started entertaining like crazy. We knew if we could start a brand from scratch, in a bigger market that we could make it successful. When we first came there, everyone thought we were just all talk, we sold a handful of tickets. I’ll never forget January 2016, getting the call that we’d over-drafted our account, we were out of money and we had nothing left. That’s when we got an air bed and we sold our house and just $30 a week for grocery shopping. I mean, it was bad. We had to get attention. What we believe is [that] attention beats marketing a thousand percent of the time. We were talking, talking, talking, but we had to create attention. So when we named the team the Savannah Bananas, it wasn’t just naming the team in advance, we came up with the idea to have a senior citizen dance team called the Banana Nanas, a male cheerleading team called the Man-Nanas, a mascot named Split, music videos to “Can’t Stop the Peeling,” a banana baby that we lift up before the games and sing nasavania, a banana band which you would never have in a baseball game. So we had a bigger vision of how to make it not like a typical baseball game. Once they came and saw that the first night, fans started telling everyone and since that first season we’ve sold out every game and now the lottery list for tickets is over 2 million. We’re selling out major league stadiums. I never would have imagined this when we first started.

Brian

What a crazy, awesome success story. It’s clear that the Bananas are not only different from other baseball teams, but in fact…obviously you’ve created something completely unique. I think Jesse, a lot of us get stuck trying to figure out how to differentiate ourselves. We hear that in marketing books and we know that we need to be different to differentiate ourselves and our businesses in the marketplace but we struggle with that sometimes. Your book, “Find Your Yellow” addresses this. It’s all about standing out in a world full of sameness. Where did the yellow tux idea come from? When did you decide that that was going to be your signature outfit? You try lots of things all the time and some of them stick and some don’t. Obviously the yellow tux thing stuck because you now have at least seven of them, I think.

Jesse

I’m up to nine now, which is crazy, but yes, I was inspired by PT Barnum, as I mentioned. Back in Gastonia – people don’t realize – the yellow tux happened before the Bananas. So when I was in Gastonia I was on the mic putting on a show, I was getting the dunk tank every game. We were doing grandma beauty pageants and dig to China nights and pregnant nights and pregnant dance off; we tried it all. And I was like, if I’m on the field, putting on a show, why should I be dressed like everyone else? I was inspired by PT Barnum and so the first night I got a…it was a black giant top hat and a black tuxedo with tails. But it was 101 degrees in North Carolina and I almost melted. I said, this ain’t gonna work. So I found a lighter colored one, wore it the next day and it stuck. People knew where I was around the ballpark, and more than anything it amplified who I was, full of energy and bringing life to things. Now I realize it’s given permission to our team to have fun and our whole staff. We have over 200 staff and players that are here, it’s crazy what’s happened. But everyone’s in costumes and outfits and dancing and having fun and I think that’s so important. As a leader, if you’re always going to be serious, then you’re going to have that with your team. I think there’s a value when you have fun, you perform better. We’ve seen it with our players, we’ve seen it with our staff. So now this is my uniform, when I put it on, it’s showtime. I always embody that attitude of have fun and be different and stand out.

Brian

I don’t know this for sure but as far as I know, you’re the only person in the world who wears a yellow tuxedo every day. How is it helpful to be different, or even better, to be the only…which is what I think you are certainly in the case of yellow tux and in the Bananas or in many other ways. What suggestions do you have for helping us to discover or create our own uniqueness in business, for finding our own yellow tux?

Jesse

Well, I think so many people in so many businesses are trying to be a little bit faster, a little bit better, a little bit early, how do you be the only in your industry, and I think it starts often by looking at what gives you energy. A game changer for me – and I talk a lot about in my second book “Fans First” – was to create your energy list. When I first started, I was doing everything: operations, food and beverage, hiring, and I was burnt out at the end of every night, exhausted. Now my goal is to have more energy when I come home to my kids at the end of the night. To do that I’ve got to be going with what gives me energy. So to find what gives you the only, it’s what are you not only passionate about but what gives you energy, what fires you up, because then you will invest more time, more research, more resources into that to be able to stand out. Often the best way in a business is put yourself in your customers shoes. The starting point of all innovation is what are the friction points and what are the frustration points for your customer. We realize with baseball [it’s] too long, too slow, too boring, you get nickeled and dimed. So we created all-inclusive tickets, no ticket fees, no convenience fees, made it entertaining. Same thing with Banana Ball. So if you really want to stand out, put yourself in the customers shoes, find what gives you energy and go all in.

Brian

That’s great advice. I remember reading a book about 20 years ago called “The Experience Economy,” you’re probably familiar with…(Jesse: Yeah, Joseph Pine and Jim Gilmore.) Yeah, exactly, and that was the first time I really understood the concept of businesses scripting and staging memorable events and experiences rather than just providing a product and service, which even in business school that’s what I learned. You’ve taken that concept and – to borrow a phrase Walt Disney used to use – “plussed” it. I say plussed but you’ve actually multiplied it exponentially. It’s the experience economy on steroids that you’ve created as you’ve turned this traditional baseball experience into a circus-like atmosphere. Again, you really have to…you did a great job of describing it, but when you see it, it’s just…it’s bananas. As I was prepping for the show I really enjoyed watching lots of videos on Instagram and just a couple of examples that stood out for me are the world’s tallest hitter and pitcher – ten foot Dakota Stilts – and then this play – all kinds of zany plays – but this one I saw where the ball was hit, I think to the center fielder, and the center fielder had a bat and hit the ball to the first baseman to make an out. It was just crazy to me. That happens every night, I think, at the ballpark. How did your experience strategy evolve? Share a couple of other ways that you create unique experiences every night at the ballpark.

Jesse

Again, a great call. It was inspired by Walt Disney in our Fans First pillars and our Fans First principles. Our number 11 principle is always plus the experience and I got that from Walt Disney. Disney said Disneyland is a living, breathing thing, it’ll never be complete, we’ll continue to plus the show and he believed that whenever he was building. That’s why he never liked sequels. He always wanted to plus Disney World and Disneyland. For us, we started with doing one new thing every single night. I think constraints foster creativity so if you force yourself to have to do certain new things, you’re going to become more creative. Now we do 10 to 15 new things every single night. We have “OTT sessions” where we’re talking about Over-The-Top ideas, it started as “Idea Paloozas.” What I want people to come to the ballpark is see something they’ve never seen before. So again, whatever is normal, do the exact opposite. Normally, coaches coach, we have a break-dancing coach who’s unbelievable, does unbelievable dancing every game at first base, a ten-foot guy hitting on stilts, a team playing in kilts, we think about all that stuff on how to do things that people haven’t seen. So you’ve really got to create an idea culture in your organization and get everyone working their idea muscle. Every day, we have groups getting together and talking about ideas on how to solve problems for our fans, or making a better, more fun, unique experience. Then we start experimenting, we’re not afraid to fail; I mean, living pinata – huge failure, all right – a lot of these crazy promotions we’ve tried haven’t worked. But some, they work out pretty well.

Brian

It seems like most companies that try to do what you do…I think it’s challenging to replicate that success for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is just that vision at the top from somebody like you or a Walt Disney or a PT Barnum. But it seems like companies that try to do that, to run at such a frenzied pace, risk burning people out. How do you ensure that doesn’t happen? You’re talking about 10 to 15 new ideas per night, it’s great that you’re coming up with that and that other visionaries are coming up with that but to take that and implement that, it seems like in most organizations somebody on the receiving end of those visionary ideas would be like, oh, my goodness, like, I have no idea how we’re going to get this done. How do you make sure that doesn’t happen? What can we all do to make sure that we’re jazzing and energizing our team, rather than depleting their energy with demands we place on them, which often happens in organizations.

Jesse

I understand, well, I’ll start with first, it’s not just visionaries who come up with ideas and visionaries who are creative; everyone has creativity, we just don’t often work our idea muscle. What we do is we constantly encourage, we have…one of our group ticket team members saw our drains at our stadium, and they were just normal drains so he himself went and said, I’m going to make them custom bananas. And he got custom little bananas in all the drains – a little tiny detail that one percent of our fans see, but he’s not a part of our creative team or our marketing team. We look for ways to do things, and we encourage it. When you talk about burnout, we work very hard. What we do touring around the country – it’s crazy traveling with 150-200 people – but we get purpose on seeing how our fans respond to what we do. When you have fans lining up at 9am or fans that drive 40 hours to come to your game – which a family came to me and I was like, there’s this thing called an airplane that’s a lot easier than driving 40 hours – but when people do that we share those stories. Most companies, they have core beliefs, but do they have stories that backup those core beliefs? Every time we go into a city, we talk about the “fans first” moments that are created, and we get emails, videos, we get other opportunities from fans that we can then recognize what happened. And then from our social media, you mentioned Instagram, we now have 8 million followers on TikTok, 15 million followers total. When we put a video out we get immediate reaction from fans. A lot of them are like, oh, thank you guys, I love this, you made my day. We have people that were going through depression and thinking about committing suicide, that say your videos and your games lift us up. That gives us purpose to keep pushing and keep staying fresh. So I think you really, as a leader, you need to reflect out and say, why are we doing this? What is the purpose and to share the difference that your product makes, and then say, hey, we have a responsibility and obligation and if we get energy out of it, let’s keep pushing. Our staff, we’re really enjoying what we do. We have to keep it fresh, as soon as we get bored is when we think our fans will get bored. So we make sure if we don’t have new ideas, then we’re in trouble. That’s why we love coming up with ideas.

Brian

How do you share those stories practically in your organization? Conceptually, that sounds great. And not to get too far into the weeds on it but do you have formal meetings? You must have some kind of formal structure to be able to do just the sheer amount, number of new ideas that you implement every day? What does that look like?

Jesse

We learned the idea mechanism from Saturday Night Live. On Mondays they have their idea pitch sessions to the host and the Lorne Michaels, then Tuesday they start writing, Wednesday they do table reads, Thursday, Friday, they get ready for rehearsals, Saturday, they have a rehearsal at 8pm. They cut things and they’re ready at 11:30 for the show. We do our OTT ideas on Tuesday because we’re traveling a lot Sunday, Monday. Then we start doing table reads and we plan that and start doing rehearsals and practicing into that weekend. In regards to the stories, when we come into a new city or to start a new weekend, we get the whole staff together and we share fans first moments from the past weekend. We get the stories from the department leads and say, alright, what was one from your department? What was one from your department that’s something that really made a difference in a fan? And we share that and that gives them examples on how to create more in the future. The Hall of Fame put us in the Hall of Fame this year, which is crazy, the Bananas, and one of our players jerseys is in the Hall of Fame because he has kids sign his jersey, that’s what’s amazing, it’s not from his playing ability, it’s because of the fans first moment he created. And that’s what we share over and over again.

Brian

You mentioned the exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and I was certainly going to bring that up. How did that feel? Because that’s really probably the ultimate honor certainly from the traditional sport of baseball. How did it feel when you received word from Cooperstown? What does that mean for the Savannah Bananas to receive that kind of recognition?

Jesse

I got emotional. When I first got the call, I called my dad and he was like, you got to be kidding me. And then to see us when we went there, back in September, and to see this whole exhibit. They had my idea books in there, really where I came up with the first ideas for Banana Ball back in 2018 and my top hat and our first score book and our yellow ball and Michael Deeb’s jersey. It was overwhelming. It was because of the impact they said, we can’t not pay attention to what you’re doing. It’s big. It’s made an impact with all the people coming around the country and kids playing it. So I told our team that it’s a testament to them for being fans first. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t fans first. Yes, we’re creating a new game. Yes, we’re creating new fans. But it’s because of all those moments every single night that each one of us create. It’s a fact that literally when our fans show up at 9am or noon we’re out there greeting them, that we have a whole march and we welcomed them all into the stadium, that we’re signing autographs an hour after the game and greeting every single fan. It’s those moments that really brought us to the Hall of Fame. It was quite the honor, to say the least.

Brian

What an incredible accolade and certainly a big honor for you. I can’t think of any really bigger way to honor the role that the Savannah Bananas have played not just in baseball or the Banana Ball version of it, but really in contributing fun and joy to the world so that’s awesome. Jesse, everything we’ve been talking about really centers around inspiring fanatical loyalty, whether we’re talking about with your fans and your Fans First philosophy, but also in your organization and in the community. Your company name is Fans First Entertainment so you’re clearly fanatical about fandom. Why is it so important? Why is that at the core, the essence of everything that you do? What impact have you seen because of that focus on putting fans first?

Jesse

It’s everything and I didn’t get it right at first, that the name of the company was first Team Call One Associates which sounds like a terrible law firm or an accounting office. No, we want to be clear, I think simplicity. I learned this from Donald Miller back in the day; you confuse, you lose. What if the name of the company is who you are and what you stand for? We are fans first. We entertain always. Fans First Entertainment. Our mission is: fans first, entertain always. Every decision we make we ask is it fans first, we have our fans first pillars that guide us. It’s everything. So when you know why you do what you do, who you work for, and who you serve every single day, it makes decision making easy. It makes the vision much easier to reach. It’s just been everything for us. Again, it’s all we talk about. It’s all we talk about. I’ll never forget, we had an intern with us for just a couple of weeks and we were walking – all the players and staff were – walking people to their cars in the rain with umbrellas, and I watched an older gentleman come up to her and say, I would like a walk. So she walks him and she’s gone for 30 minutes and we’re about to send out a search party, we’re worried. She comes back soaking wet and I said, where were you? She goes, I walked that gentleman to his doorstep. I go, you walked him home? And she goes, fans first, right? She was with us for just two weeks but those two simple words guided her in doing something, taking literally the extra mile because she walked him almost a mile. Those are the differences, so we share those stories over and over again. So someone that they just joined us, they know how to act and what to do to serve our fans.

Brian

How does that happen? So somebody two weeks in already adopting the philosophy and manifesting it in the way that you described, walking a fan home in the rain; what do you do on the front end to make sure that that happens or to educate and train and inspire not just the Fans First philosophy, but really everything that you stand for?

Jesse

Well, you have leaders that are very vocal and scream from the mountaintops, who they are, what they stand for, and what makes them different. I mean, literally, if you search “fans first,” we’re all over it. It’s from the books, to the speeches, to the lessons, to the sharing, the writing. Then when they apply with us, we make it a fans first experience, literally from the get go. You write a fans first essay on how you fit our core beliefs. You see our fans first pillars and our principles, we look for a future resume to see how you are fans first. Then as soon as you start, our fans first one on one and fans first orientation is built on traditions and storytelling. Everyone on our team, even in the hiring process, you’re meeting people and we’re talking about it, it is just talked about over and over and over again. You know those examples, you know those stories, so when you start day one…which, our players came here for spring training our entire staff was there greeting them with a marching band. We had literally streamers, confetti, then we had surprises for them in the locker room, we had surprises in the office, and we had a lunch with a carving station for them, I mean, we went above and beyond. We treated them like fans so our players now know what it feels like because we made them feel that. Same thing when our interns start with us, we had a huge party, huge celebration – they’re wowed – they have their favorite treats their favorite snacks, that’s how you do it, you got to make them feel like fans as well, if you want to give them examples and how to treat our fans like that.

Brian

When I think of Savannah Bananas, I think about fans first but the next thing I think of is fun in just all capitals, in very large letters. As you know, we live in a world where sports teams and other businesses certainly tend to take themselves very seriously yet one of the things that I love about the Bananas is that you’ve doubled down on fun and absurdity and high energy. What advice do you have for injecting more fun into our businesses? Because that’s not usually something that leaders and managers focus on like they do at the Savannah Bananas.

Jesse

The soft word, like love. Oh, well, it was good, fun is good. But what does it mean? It’s too soft. It’s not tangible. How do you measure it? Well, I think you can measure fun; if you go into an office how often do you hear laughter? If I ever walk into our office and I’m not hearing laughter, something’s wrong and I’ll check in with it. I think business can be very serious. The reality is, if people aren’t having fun, what’s the point? I look at it like we come in daily, and we try to do things that are fun for us, that we would enjoy, that we would have fun with and our job is to deliver fun. Now maybe that’s not your business. Now some businesses, I get it: medical, law, there are so many I could go on that have to be very, very serious. But my question is, when I say – in the “Fans First” book, The Five E’s to create raving fans – the second is entertain always. And everyone’s like, oh, you’re in the entertainment business, we can’t be in that. The definition of entertain is to provide enjoyment, enjoyment, which is a good friend of fun. So if we’re all providing enjoyment, if our job is to find enjoyment, we better be enjoying what we do. How can you provide great enjoyment if you don’t enjoy what you do? What we try to do is we try to surround ourselves with people that…when we’re hiring people, we go out and we take them out, we like to see, do we have fun with them? Could we take them to the barbecue? Can we have a drink with them? Can we hang out with them? How fun is it? And they want to make sure that we have similar interests and that; now, we have a diverse crew but can we have fun together? I think you ask anyone what they love about their company, it’s not just what they do and why they do it, it’s the people they’re surrounding themselves with. If you’re around people that aren’t having fun, it’s kind of tough. So we’re really intentional on that, it’s part of the interview process, where we come in. I think just if leaders didn’t take themselves too seriously, and gave their people permission to have fun, they would be shocked by the production and how much better people would be at their job if you allow a little bit more fun in your organization.

Brian

What I’m visualizing is you’re saying is maybe a fun spectrum and so you, on the spectrum, are like way off the chart on the right side of fun and but maybe there’s a joy or engagement or a level of fun that’s appropriate even at a law office, and it might not be fun with the client. Although there are certainly ways to put clients first just like you can put fans first in baseball or in Banana Ball, but also in engaging people and making it a joyful place. It doesn’t have to be drudge and it doesn’t have to be serious all the time. It might not look like Savannah, Georgia the night of a Savannah Bananas game, but it can be an appropriate level of engagement and fun. Is that fair to say?

Jesse

When people start, do you welcome them first with paperwork and say, alright, here are the processes, here are the policies, here are the rules, or do you actually welcome them as a friend you’re actually connecting with? Again, you can script everything. We script our rain delays, we have a three-hour script for rain delays, we script when people start with us, we look at everything, from our invoices, to anything that we have, we say does it have some fun in it? Is it fun? Now, that’s our brand. But I’ll say can you mix a little bit of fun into what you do? Test it, try it, experiment with it; what’s the worst thing that can happen? I challenge leaders to throw a little bit of fun into what they do and see what happens. I think they will be surprised by the results, and maybe people will be like, you know what, I really enjoyed working with my boss today because he wasn’t so serious all the time.

Brian

That’s great. Jesse, I know your most important audience lives at home with you. I’m curious with the demanding schedule you have, what do you do to balance your professional demands as the top banana at your company, as well as you’re out speaking and you’re writing books, and still maintain harmony with your family and other important areas of your life?

Jesse

Very intentional. It’s what we work on. I’m so fortunate with my wife, she’s helped ground our family. But my goal again, do what gives me energy – if I do what gives me energy, I’ll do my best for my family. So yes, we have three kids under five, biological side, two foster daughters we just adopted the past week, so glad to have them officially now a part of our family. They travel with us, they go on tour with us. I make sure that I can be full play mode with them. I shut down after a day of work and focus with them, the phone is not on me. I’m always playing with the kids, again, having fun. It’s what works for you. I get up at 4am, I work for two hours before the kids get up and get a lot done. Then I make sure I take the kids to school, and then once they’re at school I get back into my workload. I work a lot. I love what I do, I’m passionate about it, gives me tons of energy, but I make sure that I have blocks every day to have doses – strong doses – and then on weekends where I can really engage with the kids. Everyone has their own secret sauce they work, but for me, it’s again, not only to finding the energy in work but finding energy with the kids. I’m not really good at getting on the ground and playing dolls with my daughters, but I gladly will draw with them or do puzzles with them. And with my son, I will play basketball and Banana ball. I also find that things that we love to do together and try to do more of that as well. Then, especially for us, it’s a lot of one-on-one time, a lot of daddy-daughter dates and a burger boy with my son. So I tried to make sure we have more of the experiential time, not just the sitting around time.

Brian

I think that’s very well said, and intentionality, I think, is the key to creating any kind of results that we want to create. Certainly when we’re talking about harmony with family or success in business or health or fitness or anything else, really intentionality is at the start of it. I heard you say that you’re not great at playing dolls with your daughters, but I’m guessing you’re on the floor some time with dolls or maybe letting them do your hair or put makeup on your face…

Jesse

Not that [laughter] they like tickle fests and they like pillow fights so I’ll be on the ground losing in a pillow fight or tickle fest, but hopefully no makeup on the face at least for a few years. [Laughter.]

Brian

Make it yellow if you do it, I guess (Jesse: Yeah, that’s for sure.) Jessie, one of the things that I really admire about you is the impact that the Bananas have had on the community. Talking about intentionality, I know you’re really intentional about raising money for not-for-profit organizations. Additionally, you launched your own organization last year, 501-C3 not-for-profit, called Bananas Foster, the mission of which is to celebrate the foster care community while educating and inspiring others to get involved. I think there are something like 400,000 kids in the foster care system in the US so obviously we have a huge need in this area. You mentioned it briefly with your two daughters but tell us about your and Emily’s personal experience as foster parents and share why it’s so important to you to bring families together through foster care.

Jesse

We learned right away, Emily has a huge heart and realized the challenge with 400,000 kids without a permanent home. So we opened up our home, we got licensed and during COVID opened up our home, had two amazing daughters join us. We just saw that there’s a need and so we said how can we bring people together just like we do with the Bananas, but do that in the foster care world. We just said, hey, let’s do it, like anything, just start it. So we started Bananas Foster. Now, everywhere we go around the country, we honor foster families on the field in front of sold-out crowds that have either fostered 30, 40, 50; families that have adopted and they get a standing ovation and our players join them for a hug. And in every one of those cities more foster families sign up. Again, we are working on the [inaudible] approach; honor and recognize, don’t just talk about the problems, share the people that are the heroes that are doing amazing things. I don’t know when it’s going to happen but we have a wait list now of over 2 million people for tickets, we’re going to create a wait list in this country of families wanting to be foster families; I believe it, we’re going to do it the positive way, we’re going to make it happen.

Brian

That’s awesome. I really commend you for that. I congratulate you personally on the adoption of your two daughters. I know that was a lengthy process. That’s really a wonderful thing for your family and beyond that, the impact that you’re making. I have no doubt that you will be successful in your goals for the foster care system. There are hundreds of thousands of kids who will be better off because of it and hundreds of thousands of families that will be better off because of it. Obviously our society gets to benefit too. You are now touring the country. You started out having your games all in Savannah, Georgia, and now you’re playing in all the biggest ballparks around the country on your Banana Ball tour. Tell us a little bit about that.

Jesse

Yep, just very fortunate, we went from a one city, World Tour to seven cities, to 33 cities and a half million fans, now we’re going to over a million fans, six major league stadiums. We’ve even got a whole cruise ship, Bananaland at Sea. Again, just trying to bring it to more people, that’s the whole goal, bring it to more people. We have Party Animals doing a headlining tour, our second team, which has more followers than every major league baseball team on TikTok. So, continue to bring the joy and that’s where we’re having fun.

Brian

That’s fantastic. Tell us, Jesse, about the players, the Savannah Bananas players, because as I watch them they seem more Cirque du Soleil than talented baseball players some of the time. But I know you also have some incredibly talented players, players who have played in the major leagues and are now playing for the Bananas. How do players come to you and how is it that you create this environment, that again, is really a combination of traditional baseball and something like a Vegas act?

Jesse

We’re looking for the most talented and entertaining players from all over the country. We have a lot of guys who’ve played pro ball, are pro ball caliber throwing 95 miles an hour, guys that have played in the major leagues. But then we’re looking for people who can juggle, who can do back-flips, who can entertain, who can do gymnastics, who can play on stilts. It’s a combination and we’ve been very fortunate to find these from all over the country.

Brian

Jesse, our show is, as you know, called LifeExcellence. The Savannah Bananas and your Fans First philosophy certainly exemplifies excellence. I’m curious, what does excellence mean to you?

Jesse

I think about joy, I think about fun, I think about success. Excellence, for me, that’s the outcome of doing something that you love that gives you energy and holding yourself to the highest standard. When you do that you produce pretty excellent results. So excellence is, I think, often looked at outwardly, I think you have your own inner definition of excellence and I think, again, it starts at doing things that you’re passionate about, that you love, that you will put more energy and more effort to anyone else, and then the results often do become excellent.

Brian

That’s very well said. Hey, Jesse, I know you need to split but I want to thank you so much for being on our show today. It’s great to see you again and I’m grateful, one, for your coming on the show and secondly, for your friendship. Thanks for everything. I appreciate you.

Jesse

Thanks. It was great being with you.

Brian

Thanks for tuning in to LifeExcellence. Please support the show by subscribing, sharing it with others, posting about today’s show with the amazing Jesse Cole on social media and leaving a rating and review. You can also learn more about me at BrianBartes.com. Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.