Quick Cut: S2E295 Life is Good with Bert Jacobs
It's a Good Life
Brian Buffini
4.4 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Click here to listen to the full episode
Bert Jacobs is the co-founder of Life is Good, a $100 million company dedicated to spreading the power of optimism. In this episode, he tells Brian how he and his brother John went from selling t-shirts on the streets of Boston to leading such a successful positive-lifestyle brand.
YOU WILL LEARN:
· How their mother inspired the business.
· How others helped them to grow and develop.
· Why they are committed to their groundbreaking nonprofit work.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
“Life is Good,” by Bert and John Jacobs
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“Life is not easy. Life is not perfect. But life is good.” – Bert Jacobs
“Optimism is the most pragmatic strategy for living a happy and fulfilling life.” – Bert Jacobs
“There is no more important job on planet earth than the job of a mother. Because if the youngest people on this planet can grow up with resilience and the right values, then our world is going to be okay.” – Bert Jacobs
“Know who you are, and act like it.” – Bert Jacobs
“The good life is not about what you have in possessions or where you are geographically. It's more the acknowledgement that life - while it's a mystery - is a great gift.” – Bert Jacobs
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to It's a Good Life with Brian Buffini, founder of America's largest business coaching company. |
| 0:10.4 | Here's a short classic cut from one of our all-time favorite episodes. |
| 0:17.3 | Well, the top of the morning to you and welcome to It's a Good Life. Well, I got to tell you, this podcast was destined to happen. Bert Jacobs, we might as well be brothers from different mothers. In 1994, Bert and his brother John started the famous t-shirt company, Life is Good. What a brand they've built. What a business they built from the streets of Boston. |
| 0:39.4 | Starting with, you know, the classic 70 bucks in the wallet all the way to this fabulous company |
| 0:44.3 | that is there today. Bert, welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Brian. Thrill to be here and |
| 0:50.4 | can't wait to meet everybody else on your team. You're wearing a shirt today that says, |
| 0:54.9 | Grateful Dude. |
| 0:55.8 | Where did the spirit of optimism come from? |
| 0:58.1 | It was really our mom who instilled this idea that optimism is really powerful. |
| 1:05.9 | And she did it over and over. |
| 1:08.5 | We had a pretty dysfunctional home. Everybody was trying their best, |
| 1:12.7 | but our dad was heavily depressed when we were kids growing up. And, you know, he just kind of lost it a bit. |
| 1:20.2 | I think he had too many kids, not enough money. And he was well intended, but he just really kind of |
| 1:25.2 | lost it. And my mother, no matter what was going on, had this |
| 1:29.0 | ritual at the dinner table where she looked around the table and say, tell me something good |
| 1:34.2 | that happened today. And that simple prompt just changed the energy in the room. And it worked |
| 1:41.7 | over and over and she kind of, you know, bonded us with each other and we |
| 1:46.4 | had each other's backs no matter what and we laughed a lot no matter what was going on and, |
| 1:53.1 | you know, even though we had the crazy dysfunctional home, all our friends liked to hang out there |
| 1:57.5 | because there was always something happening. It's funny, both our parents struggled |
| 2:02.2 | with depression, but my dad's coping mechanisms were screaming and yelling and drinking too much. |
| 2:09.4 | And my mom, on the other hand, it was the singing and the storytelling and she was really |
... |
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