Jas Mathur’s mornings start at 2.30am. His 5am workout is non-negotiable. He has over 1.2 crore followers on Instagram. A millionaire at 21, the Indian-origin Canadian entrepreneur started his first business as an 11-year-old—reportedly making astonishing sums of money from a wrestling news website that generated revenue through web traffic and display ads. Today, he leads the global fitness supplements brand Limitless X, hosts Hollywood parties and is seen spending time with Floyd Mayweather Jr and Ray J.
It’s the kind of résumé that comes with a lot of erms. For instance, you don’t seem like someone who cares about being ‘soft’. Oh, he is part of that same cult of rich, sigma, powerful and megalomaniac men. Hustle hard. Brutal honesty. A cult one of whose founding members, Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year that corporations are “neutered” nowadays and are “trying to get away” from masculine energy.
What does Mathur make of Zuckerberg’s proclamation that a culture that “celebrates aggression” has merits?
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“Aggression without empathy is destructive. And empathy without strength is ineffective There needs to be collaboration between masculine and feminine energies,” he says, adding, “A great corporation has to embody both—the drive, decisiveness and courage often associated with masculine energy, and the empathy, collaboration and creativity often associated with feminine energy. The future belongs to companies that can integrate both in balance.”
One glance at Mathur’s Instagram profile, @limitless, shows off his ripped physique. He’s seen working in the gym, flexing his Amazonian pecs. “I’ve lived on both ends of the spectrum: physically unhealthy but financially successful, and now, healthier than ever while building global companies,” says Mathur, whose other big feat was losing over 250 pounds—a reinvention that could sell his fitness entrepreneur status better than anything else ever can.
“I’ve learned that being ‘soft’ isn’t weakness; it’s actually the courage to be empathetic, to listen, and to connect deeply with people. Masculinity, to me, isn’t about aggression. It’s about responsibility, resilience, discipline and having the strength to lead with compassion.”
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Apart from ‘limitless’, ‘discipline’ is the word Mathur uses frequently. It exists, he insists, at the core of his value system. It’s also his answer to why so many people across cultures and geographies struggle to attain their dream physiques. “Fitness isn’t about the body, it’s about the mind. Most people attack fitness with motivation, but motivation is fleeting. Discipline, however, is permanent. If you anchor your why—if you shift from punishment to lifestyle, then fitness stops being a struggle and becomes who you are.”
He was a youngster who weighed 450 pounds—with a 68-inch waist. A little boy who shifted from Delhi and its verdant lanes, to Canada, with its freezing winters. A teenager who dropped out of school to chase a dream that must have seemed distant despite the early success. With Limitless X and the social clout that he’s amassed for himself, he could be said to have reached a version of masculinity that he once pursued. The thing about the male population that baffles him today, “is how many men chase status without building character”.
“Masculinity isn’t about what you own—it’s also about how you carry yourself, treat others and handle adversity,” adds Mathur, who produced The Man You Don’t Know, a documentary about two-time US President Donald Trump exploring a more favourable side of the controversial former businessman, also a a WWE Hall of Famer (Mr Mathur politely declined to comment on this endeavour).
The other thing about healthy masculinity is that it’s not fragile. With his company, Limitless X, Reddit forums, buyer dissatisfaction pages and media reports have flagged concerns around delivery or customer service. In his response to Esquire India, Mathur skips the defensive stonewalling—he lives for “self-mastery” over “external validation”. “No company is perfect, but the companies that succeed long term are the ones that listen, adapt and improve relentlessly. That has always been my approach.”
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“In the past, part of our old business model relied heavily on third-party affiliates and 3PL providers. The challenge with that setup was that we had no real control over our marketing, which led to issues that were ultimately out of our hands. The truth is, the affiliate space can be very negative, with many players focussed on short-term gains rather than long-term customer relationships.”
Mathur, who believes in a version of maleness that operates from “confidence” and not “arrogance”, takes this dissatisfaction in his stride. “When you’re doing over ten thousand sales a day and shipping more than fifty thousand bottles, there will always be a percentage of dissatisfied customers.”
And yet, he says, “For me, customer trust is everything. I take criticism seriously and see it as an opportunity to improve. Scepticism keeps me accountable.” The 40-year-old tells Esquire India that he’s focussing on “building stronger customer support systems, adding redundancies in logistics, and closely monitoring feedback” to fix routinely reported problems.
Mathur says the “hunger to achieve” and “resilience” that keeps him striving despite general skepticism about his business and the lack of knowledge around the industry, go back to his origins in India. Besides “the schoolyard, the taste of Nirula’s fried chicken and the unique mix of energy and organised chaos”, his birthplace Delhi revealed to him its contrasts early on. “Wealth and struggle existed side by side. That contrast shaped my perspective and fuelled my ambition.”
Mathur, who today leads a NASDAQ-listed health and wellness company (one of the very few Indian-origin entrepreneurs to do so), says the thing most people completely miss about money and wealth is “that money is just a tool, not the goal”. The trick, Mathur posits, is to avoid chasing money for “validation”, and to see it as an instrument of freedom—freedom “to create, to give and to live life on your own terms”.
“The real flex isn’t how much you spend—it’s how much you impact. Success without service is empty.”
And that… may be the man you don’t know.