How to plan an epic 2025 in 56 minutes | Jesse Itzler

Shaan Puri

Alright it's the end of the year and forget new year's resolutions we have something much better so in the next hour jesse itzler is coming on and he has a entire process for planning a monster 2025

Jesse Itzler

I don't wanna play catch up I want to attack like now I'm taking control and I'm dominating the year I have other people taking it away from me

Shaan Puri

jesse is a incredibly successful guy he started zico coconut water he started a private jet company he sold to warren buffett he's an emmy award winning rapper got 4 kids he's an ultra marathoner he lived with david goggins if you don't wanna learn from this guy something's wrong with you you're broken inside

Jesse Itzler

if everybody does the 3 things that we're gonna talk about in 2025 and does everything else the same at the end of the year they see me in an airport they're gonna bear hug me

Sam Parr

I just saw sean writing like I like take notes

Shaan Puri

these are my golden nuggets from this episode these are you know my pen dive halfway through

Jesse Itzler

and now you added 20 winning habits you're jason bourne you're jason bourne

Shaan Puri

jesse's amazing he tells us this process that he's been doing for the past 25 30 years I'm pretty pumped about it and I think he will be too

Jesse Itzler

I'm glad to be back man I love your show I love that you got me back as a repeat as a repeat offender so let me just start by saying that you know I love december I think december and january is our critical months for the 11 or 12 months that follow them and as we head into the new year you know the first thing that I do like any business in america when we get to the end of the year they close out the year they have review sessions what worked what didn't work you know what was successful what wasn't successful they give themselves a grade etcetera and I found that a lot of people don't do that in their own personal lives so I like to take a little inventory in december and just kinda have a little review process around how the year went and and and take inventory on my own personal year but like no one taught me how to set up my life you know like no one taught me how to like deal with my emails and no one taught me how to schedule properly I never like I didn't take a class in school that like hey you're gonna have 4 kids you're gonna get bombarded with emails from from the school with all kinds of appointments and zoom calls that we didn't have back then and you know like your calendar's gonna fill up with other people's requests for your time like how do you wanna deal with that so you have enough time to do things that you wanna do and achieve the goals that you wanna do within work and outside of work no one taught me that and then layer in children and layer in a wife that works in a business as an entrepreneur and like how do you do that so you know like I'm a product of trial and error I tried a lot of stuff I didn't grow up with a phone I was scheduling everything on a paper calendar for literally 45 years of my life you know and and I had to figure out like what as my life evolved how to grow with it so I have a pretty cool system I'm happy to share it with you guys it's worked really well it's allowed me to to balance a lot of things and get a lot of things done and I think it's pretty simple and I I will preface it by saying that you know as you get older how old are you guys

Sam Parr

3536 right yeah 36

Jesse Itzler

alright so you got another maybe decade before this hits but it will hit and it's inevitable as you get older creating newness becomes really hard because you live in routine you know and like it gets very comfortable to be to live in routine and really I found that the only way to really guarantee that you create newness and newness is important it's important to relationships it's important to your momentum and your enthusiasm and and your success and your excitement towards thing and your growth the only way to create newness I found is the planet and or leave room to be spontaneous so I become a really aggressive planner and I feel like a lot of us play life on defense our calendars fill up with other people's requests for time like I mentioned zoom calls weddings appointments school stuff and at the end of the year like you don't have a lot to show for it

Sam Parr

what are the categories I do family fitness finance fun do you have like your own like cute acronym for your categories

Jesse Itzler

well I do my own individual personal audits for business with my teams but then from my personal thing adventure is a category for me I try to look through like what kind of adventures did I have like I said and we'll get into this in a minute you know you wanna have something to show for all your hard work at the end of the year not your zoom calls I'm not like yes in october I lit it up on zoom I'm not doing that I'm like oh I just I just took a one on one trip with my daughter to new york city I just got back so stuff like that I'm like really taking inventory on how much time did I spend with my kids you know like what did I do well what did I do what do I have to work on in my role like I really really do do that and then I try to close out the year and I have a system for closing out the year I'll share it with you guys really quickly and like the overall theme of closing out a year and I think everyone should take a couple hours to do this I think it builds momentum and I think it gives you a little closure around the year whether you had a great year or bad year it gives you a fresh start for 2025 which I think is is really really important and the theme is I wanna come into the new year light I wanna feel light and I wanna get rid of all the email baggage all the to do lists all this I don't wanna have a lot of carryover going into the new year I wanna kinda clean my hands and just be light and this might sound ridiculous it starts in my closet I go through my closet I look at all the stuff that's been hanging there for 12 months that I've never worn you know and I donate it I get a big bag if if anything is a 5050 do I wanna keep it or don't wanna keep it I just say someone needs this more than me it goes in the donate box and I start to organize my closet so when I walk in I don't have a ton of decisions you might see me wearing very a shirt very similar to this because I don't have a lot of options you know I keep what I like I get rid of what I don't like and I get super clean my desk I get rid of all the clutter on my desk I want I don't wanna walk in and I got stacks of things I gotta go through and bills and stuff I get super clean on my desk my emails I'm a big hit delete and explode them all at the end of the year guy but before I do that I put things in files I respond to the things that I owe an answer to I delete the stuff that I don't need everything else goes into a folder and I try to go in net 0 into 2025 that's really important I don't wanna come back from my vacation january 1 and be sitting with an inbox with 700 emails and just like you know just feel like I have to play catch up the 1st 30 days of the year I don't wanna play catch up I wanna attack I wanna attack so I come in I come in naked on my emails I unsubscribe I go through all the stuff that I have subscriptions to I unsubscribe I I delete all the apps that I can use again just trying to get light you know I get rid of all clear out all the apps I clear out my cars make sure that you know I have no clutter in there and I create files for 2025 where you know maybe I I'm still a paper guy so I keep records of my medical files I know people have them on digitally but I keep a paper file I still get my bills paper I put them in files so but again I I have a system so I'm not like playing catch up and so I co I get super light on all that stuff and then I can't recommend this enough I write handwritten letters to the 20 to 30 people that really impacted me or helped me even you guys man having me on you know you might get a thank you note thank there's 8,000,000,000 people in the world guys thank you too for having me on your podcast like you thought of me thank you I write I write you know a handwritten letter to my suppliers my contractors maybe a teacher my son's coaches for football I wanna thank them this year you know with no purpose other than really giving like a thank you I've been doing this bet that for 30 years when I was 23 years old and I had no money and I was sleeping on 18 different couches my entire marketing strategy was I wrote 10 handwritten letters a day and I mailed I wrote 3,000 letters I'm not even kidding and I still to this day do that because it breaks through the clutter people remember it people read their mail they might not read their dms texts flax and all that stuff but they read their letters that come in the mail and there's a different intention I took the time I wrote it I licked the envelope I went to the mailbox I put a stamp on it I put it in there like it comes with a lot of love man it's a lot different than hitting send on an email

Sam Parr

are you still doing are you still doing all that or

Jesse Itzler

sam I'm not gonna talk about anything I don't do

Sam Parr

no what I meant is I've like wanted to send email letters to a lot of people and then I'll be like but is there a service where I can just type it out and they mail it out for me

Jesse Itzler

yeah it doesn't work that way

Shaan Puri

he's like are you listening

Sam Parr

no I I is

Shaan Puri

the audio coming through

Sam Parr

I do it by the way I send letters as well but then I'll like have a stack I have like a few years ago I got some stationery and it like it feels good to like write letters to people but every once in a while I'm like I don't feel like writing this is there a service and then I'm like what the hell am I doing and so I wasn't sure what you were doing

Jesse Itzler

yeah you can't outsource it you can't outsource it you know as a business owner like I've realized that you can't outsource soul you know and the dna of a business is the soul of the business the heartbeat of a business you can't outsource that and customers feel soul and your friends feel soul and when you start outsourcing things that you know for 100 of years humans have been doing themselves it loses a little bit and I found that that 2 hour investment how about this let's do an experiment for your listeners take 10 envelopes 10 take 10 pieces of paper and take 20 minutes and write a thank you note or to your parents to your kids teachers whoever saying hey this year I just wanna thank you for investing so much time with my kids or whatever you wanna write lick the stamp put it in an envelope and watch the return on investment watch the return on investment and I found that there's nothing like quite like it now that might sound ridiculous hokey but I've been doing it for 30 years and people still thank me no one gets a letter from you like that and doesn't remember or hit you back

Shaan Puri

there was a guy who came on by the way and he held up he was he does the same thing this guy guy spier he's a value investor and he held up he goes I do this but he's like why did I start because I went to the berkshire hathaway summit and I went to this event and then he goes afterwards here's what I got in the mail and it was a letter warren buffett had written him a letter it was 2 seconds it was guy thank you for coming really appreciate you being there sign warren and he goes if warren buffett is doing this I can do this too

Jesse Itzler

I get one from coach k I know you're a duke guy I get one from coach k every year check this out look at this I'll show you guys something this all of these letters all of these letters and there's I have boxes of these all of these letters check this out these are all letters that I got this year I've read them all I keep them all in this box and at the end of the year it's going in a thing and then I'm starting a new box that's gonna say 2025 because I've been talking about this for a long time and you know I'm in a really unique spot I'm in a business where people write me letters you wanna talk about finding your mission imagine waking up going to your mailbox and and and to to letters of people thanking you for you know sharing best practices or you know helping whatever it is what a what a gift right what a freaking gift if if everybody does the three things that we're gonna talk about in the next 20 minutes in 2025 and does everything else the same that they did in 2024 at the end of the year if they see me in an airport they're gonna bear hug me because they're gonna be like that was so easy and I can't believe how much better my life just got that's what we're gonna cover

Sam Parr

hey guys so a huge part of the growth of this podcast is thanks to our presence on youtube and without youtube I don't think we'd be as big as we are now and it's all because of you guys for watching we see you in the comments even the negative ones it definitely bothers me but I read all of them and we see how powerful this platform is for growing an audience well if you're planning for the next year and you're thinking about investing in a youtube strategy for your business then you have to check out this new guide from hubspot it covers everything you need so building a content strategy it covers understanding the youtube algorithm and how to leverage seo tactics and then it also talks about the different content types and examples to create engaging content so don't miss out grab the guide and set yourself up for success next year now let's get back to the episode

Jesse Itzler

so the first thing is is closing out the year getting light doing all those things you know to get light writing handwritten letters and then the the other thing that I do is I I try to identify like what I wanna fix going into next year because you know like everybody wants to be a 10 out of 10 no one signed up to be an 8 out of 10 the 80 you know a b - everybody wants to be as close to the a 10 out of 10 but if you have certain things that are broken even if you make a bazillion dollars and your business goes up 50% and you're crazy growth you're never gonna be a 10 out of 10 if like the marriage is broken you know something's wrong whatever so what I always tell people to do is imagine you guys had and you guys can do this right now imagine you had a big blender and in the blender you put all the buckets sam that you were just talking about all the buckets in your life into the blender your finances your health your weight your relationships where you live like everything going on in your life put it in a blender shake it up and then on a one to 10 with 10 being like the ultimate in happiness and one being rock bottom like again what's your number your weight your relationships your work your finances you put it all in you shake it out are you a 7 are you a 5 you'll have to tell me are you an 8 are you what like what are you now what I love about that exercise is immediately your brain goes to a 10 and then the 2 or 3 things that are bothering you pop in your head like crystal clear and take that number down so maybe it was like oh my finances aren't there or like I hate my job or things aren't great in my work whatever came into your head those are the things you gotta work on they're not gonna magically get better you don't just like oh you know like my my relationship stinks it doesn't like magically get better you gotta work on it and did anything pop into your guys' head right away

Shaan Puri

yeah so I I put it all in the blender I got to an 8a half and right away you're you're right I started at a 10 because I'm I'm happy right and then I said well I do the weight's gotta come down a little bit alright the weight's gotta come down a little bit so that's that's a. Off you're not wanna have healthy habits that I'm proud of and then the second one was you know I I think I'm really good at this content thing I love making content but I'm still spending way too much of my time in my businesses and I I really wanna make that shift from operator to creator and I've I've made I've made good progress but I'm not all the way where I wanna be there

Sam Parr

I had a 6 I had a daughter and I'm loving being a father and she's fantastic that's a 10 finances I did really well that's a 10 but I'm bombarded with inbound messages and I don't have a system to where I'm saying no to 10 minutes at a time the 10 minute time request and context switching is ruining my life and it feels like I can't get in the flow so I'm gonna give my give it a 6

Jesse Itzler

okay a 6 overall

Sam Parr

yeah because the context switching it like I get so much joy being in the flow of something and both a combination of lack of system and addiction to social media and text and all that shit it's brought me down a a whole bunch

Jesse Itzler

you know 2 thoughts 1 when you're doing the exercise there's no comparison against anybody else so like you you know if you are comfortable with the money you're making or whatever you're not comparing yourself to buffett it's like you know I'm comfortable where I am you're never gonna win the comparison game because there's always gonna be someone so that's one thing just to think about and then you know not to knock you at all sam I think I was super honest of you but like for anybody out there that was a 6 if like if my son comes home with a 60 on a test it's an f

Sam Parr

yeah no but I'm agreeing with you like it it it brought me down a lot

Jesse Itzler

but the good thing is it's all fixable and you have to identify it and like look I'm not here to be a therapist or preach all I'm saying is knowing what those things that are that need a little bit of help and if it's your weight you know then just in 2025 be like you know what man everything's clicking I'm gonna address this I'm just gonna be a little that's all you know so but but you have to my. Is for the listeners like you got to identify it because if you don't it just keeps compounding and and then you're playing it's just harder to like catch up when it's compounding

Shaan Puri

so you close out the year you get light you clean the closet clean the desks clean the cars you email bankruptcy you get the files you write the handwritten letters you give thanks you do the blender exercise you identify the 2 or 3 shifts I'm trying to make that's is that is that how you close out the year or is there anything else to that

Jesse Itzler

it is it's like a personal review

Shaan Puri

and just to make it super practical are you like writing this down are you just thinking about it do you say it out loud do you do this with somebody else do you look at your calendar how do you even go back to the year could you just give us like if I wanted to sit down an hour after this because I'm so pumped after this episode I wanted to go do this can you just give me the like kind of the a little more detailed instruction on how I would do it

Jesse Itzler

well I get really excited about getting light like you know so I don't have to write anything down to clean out clean my closet and my desk and my emails like that's all just something that like you know you feel accomplished when you do that and we're doing all the other stuff anyway we're we're we have businesses we're doing all this but you just feel really good about yourself as far as like handwritten letters I do make a list I keep it every year of like kinda just man I just think about like what podcast were I on for me was I on who really went above and beyond for me this year or my kids or my family you know I had a I went on a trip to to africa with a great tour guide I had a gentleman in kenya that ran with me every day to to like chaperone me through the jungle I'm gonna send him in like just that kind of stuff and I don't want anything for it just makes me feel good and I know it probably makes them feel good so I do all that and then I'd and then like again you just took that exercise took 30 seconds to identify what we gotta work on and then I just make a mental a mental note about it like you know I wanna get better at it this whole process we're talking about it's like super fast alright so that's the first thing the second thing I do is I have a planning system that I've been using that I I swear by it there's 3 steps and this is what I was talking about if you do these three things you're gonna bear hug me very simple so the first thing that I do is there's an old japanese ritual called the misogi and we took we took the liberty to tweak the exact definition of it it but but the way we look at it is that the the concept around a misogi is every year you do one big year defining thing so again at the end of the the year even though you're busy with all this stuff you have one year defining thing that to really show for your time over the 365 days so for example like 2 years ago and this is big I rode my bike across america last year I did rim to rim to rim with some friends in 2015 I launched a book living with a seal 2017 I launched a company called 29 0 29 like every year going back literally to like you know 20 years ago I can name like the one thing that I did that was really really year defining so at the beginning of the year I just I might not have that idea and that could be like I'm gonna launch a podcast I'm gonna quit smoking I'm gonna run my first marathon you know but like what is that one thing that you're gonna look back to someone and say how were you years ago I was unbelievable man I rode my freaking bike across the country I ran the new york marathon this year you know I think that's really really important now a it's important because like you wanna have something to show for it but b I find when you have something on the calendar a goal something like that you're something that you're working towards that's challenging you you show up at work and at home completely different you show up completely different a if I'm running the new york marathon sam I now have to say no to the things that that I don't have the time to get people because I gotta train I'm adding you know hours of training in so now now you have a vehicle to say no to things but b it's you know it's something that you're looking forward to

Sam Parr

one of the books that I read this last year I think it was michael something easter maybe the comfort crisis and he talked about the musogi I had one it was a 50 mile race and the the the musogi was you have a 50% chance of failing I ended up hurting my achilles really badly and I was like fuck so I I failed and it was awesome those hats and I look forward to picking a new one now

Jesse Itzler

yeah but you you didn't fail sam you just didn't finish

Sam Parr

yeah yeah yeah yeah but but it was hard ass work and it was awesome it felt great to have that on the calendar

Jesse Itzler

yeah but what you did was amazing you're you're saying I'm gonna go double the longest run I've ever done in my life okay I'm gonna do an ultramarathon on top of everything I I have going on I'm gonna challenge myself it may or may not work that that's not an f I mean that's an a in adventure you just didn't finish it I mean not everything we do is gonna work I've had businesses that have failed races that have dnfs but I love that you put it on your calendar look my kids I have 4 kids 15 10 10 and 9 alright you know what they're talking about right now they're talking about that we're going skiing in 2 weeks so they're going to school and I'm like guys 2 more weeks of school then we're going skiing because that's on their calendar it's helping them go through school focused lock in because they know they're gonna get this reward winter vacation coming up adults are the same way like I'm willing to go work really hard if I know I have a vacation coming up or a race that I'm gonna do or something that I'm excited about so having one big year defining thing really important

Sam Parr

do you know what yours is gonna be for 25

Jesse Itzler

I don't I don't and that's okay but I know that I'm gonna have one and what it does is it also like opens up my mind to adventure

Shaan Puri

which misogi do you look back out on most fondly if you look back you know 10 years or so

Jesse Itzler

I did a race called ultraman which is a 6.2 mile open water swim a 275 mile bike and a 52 mile run and I I I was insanely I was going to defer to the following year 2 weeks before the race because I didn't I hadn't swam at all I I didn't I didn't have a wetsuit and the water was 57 degrees so I called my friend who's a coach and I'm like you know listen I haven't been training at all 0 and there's no I don't think I can do this and I'm thinking about deferring thinking he's gonna be like of course defer train so you don't get hurt and he was like absolutely not the challenge is gonna be you know if you train for a year you're gonna be able to do it you have no idea if you're gonna do it

Sam Parr

dude a 6 a 6 mile swim alone would take like 3 and a half hours right

Jesse Itzler

or if you're a bad swimmer like me 5

Sam Parr

but yeah and also like 57 degree waters is I I did a a marathon in 57 degree it was horrible or a triathlon it was awful

Jesse Itzler

sam I showed up at the event and I jumped into the water the day before and my I I literally like my face hit the water and it was like

Sam Parr

you're like I'm out

Jesse Itzler

out I'm done

Sam Parr

it's like it's like it's like getting punched in the nose like when the first time when you want a box you're like this sucks dude I don't I don't wanna do this

Jesse Itzler

but I finished it I finished it and you know when I was going through this event those those kind of challenges it's really important to break things into digestible bites if you're starting a business you wanna put things into digestible bites so when I started marquisjet they would have said you need faa approval department of transportation approval build the sales team raise my I'm like well I'm as a kiddie pool attendant for you what are you talking about I mean what what did you say the first thing I needed was faa approval well there's gotta be a lawyer that does that specializes in that let me get got that guy got what was the second thing we need like so it was the same thing here I gotta swim temp 6 miles impossible can I swim to that to the next to the buoy yes can I swim buoy to buoy yes so let me just break this down into 40 buoy to buoy swings because I can let me break the I can run for 7 minutes forever so let me run for 7 minutes walk for 3 and just repeat that cycle and that that's sort of how I attacked it in any event we pick a misogi alright so I don't know what mine is yet sean for next year but I know I'm gonna have one and just for the listeners you know just the notion of like yeah you know what I wanna have something on my calendar now you're like you've like reprogrammed your brain to just be aware of adventure and that's already a step in the right direction if you're head down in work the second thing I do is something that I've named after my friend kevin I call it kevin's rule kevin and I were took our our children his daughter and my son my son was 8 at the time I think his daughter was 9 to mount washington in the winter it was it was like - 30 with the windshield and we have a - 40 sleeping bag we're sleeping in the snow it's insane and we're camping out overnight and I'm like kevin he's a police officer in new york I'm like there's 8,000,000,000 people in the world we're the only 4 people in the middle of mount washington man this is amazing I'm like you know how often do you do stuff like this and he lights up he's like oh he's like every other month I do something one day or one weekend that I normally wouldn't have done I'm like what are you talking about he's like oh instead of like watching the georgia football game I'll take my kids fishing I'll come to mount white house go visit my college friends I'm like well why he goes well if I can't take one day every 8 weeks to do something like my work life is is at is at a balance but if I do that I'll have 6 little mini adventures a year I'm like yeah he's like well how how how old are you well if you're 35 sean you live to be let's say you live to be 85 that's 50 years if you do those two things I just said you'll have 50 year defining things and 300 mini adventures that's an insane life no that's an insane life at the end of the day if I have 50 ultraman kind of things and 300 mini adventures just because I managed my clock right like I won life

Sam Parr

do your mini adventures in your masodi like do they stack to where it's like well I already did the ultraman what's like the ultra ultraman like are you trying to one up them each time

Jesse Itzler

not at all I'm just looking for things that that excite me so this actually this year I do have a it it's not challenging enough for me to consider it like a misogi but I'm going on a a tour of the world's best saunas in finland with 12 friends so we're going for 10 days we're hitting 30 30 + saunas over the course of 12 days in in in finland and you know so that is my a big thing for for 2025

Shaan Puri

hey real quick if you're liking this episode with jesse you gotta listen to the first one we did with him it's a story of how he built his fortune his first business how he failed and then ultimately a mentor stepped in and gave him some some tough love let's say and turned his life around he tells a story about how he started a private jet company ended up selling that to warren buffett there's a matt damon cameo in it crazy stories from this guy he also brainstormed business ideas of what he would do if he was young and needed to build a fortune from scratch again so go check that out it's episode number 504 you can either Google it or in the show notes below we're gonna put a link to it and also at the end of this episode we are giving away a few $1,000 of his big ass calendar the one that he uses to plan his 2025 we say the code at the end of this episode so listen to that and then you can go and get one of those for free alright back to the episode so if I'm getting this right the misogi is more of a challenge something that excites you something that it's a big adventure it's year defining and you have the you'll get the fun of progress along the way as you make progress you'll get the anticipation and then you'll get the year defining a sense of accomplishment whether you win or just you did it and then the adventures are more about is that just more about non routine so just kind of making sure you are not just every saturday we go here every sunday we do this with my kids and just shaking up the routine with something fun it doesn't have to be super challenging but is that the right way to think about those

Jesse Itzler

absolutely it's it's non routine it's planning adventure planning newness it's prioritizing yourself and it's not it's it's playing life on offense it's not letting your calendar fill up you know look if we just sit back it's gonna be weddings meetings conferences appointments and this is like what do we do what are we doing

Sam Parr

how many of those things are jesse by himself or with buddies or jesse like the family

Jesse Itzler

I love to I love to do things with with my friends and I love to do things with my family I treat my family stuff differently so I also plan family trips but you know I have the luxury of time you know people talk about rich and and the first thing that comes into your head is like money obviously and that is important and clearly that's an important part of being rich but there are so many buckets of rich are you spiritually rich are you time rich I'm insanely time rich right now which I think is the most important thing especially in your fifties I'm insanely time rich so I can I have the luxury of doing things spontaneously when I want etcetera I'm spiritually rich I'm socially rich

Shaan Puri

if we did a little sidebar here because the 3 of us are all lucky to be in a position where we don't have to work we could just spend all year training for you know an mma fight an amateur mma fight or whatever it is but I think a lot of people who listen to that you know may not be at that you know they still have the job they still have whatever the the you know the day to day responsibilities so could you take you know 30 seconds to sort of speak to like how you would maybe is there any difference in how you would approach it you know the mesodys or the adventures if somebody's not like you know financially free where their their calendar is theirs to do whatever they want with

Jesse Itzler

listen I have been doing this since my journey was insane it was crazy my twenties were were spent on couches friends apartments you you know just trying to like figure it out pay my rent you you know all that stuff but I was still so rich with adventure every year I would go to the coney island polar plunge on new year's you know what it cost a subway token subway token you know what it cost to do the trip to mount washington with my kids $18 to park we live in a country that offers the most insane rivers mountains national parks oceans hikes streams I mean conferences like you could fill up your life with adventure I should write a book filling up your life on adventure you know for under $400 a year because you can do it now so you know I I understand that obviously mine can be bigger and it's easier for me and that's true but you know I've been doing these things for for a long time I just took my son to the polar plunge at lake lanier here in georgia you know there's just so much stuff that you could do that again is outside of the norm right you know people think like you don't have to climb mount everest to feel like you've accomplished something you have to just get out there and do something that makes you proud of you you know

Shaan Puri

there's a there's a great story do you do you know brene brown so she she has this great story she tells about like her daughter going to like a swim beat and she was scared to do like the swim swim beat she was like I'm not gonna do well I'm scared to even just swim blah blah blah and she talks about how you know her daughter after the swim beat you know she lost the race she maybe got like you know whatever she wasn't didn't do her so well she got out she was feeling kind of bummed and brene brown's quote is like you know winning isn't a winning isn't always about getting 1st place sometimes winning is just getting off the block and getting wet and like you know you jumped off the blocks and you got wet like that's a huge win you you you have become a more brave person by having done that and I think there's there's something to that because you know when I hear about the ultra mara ultraman races and stuff like that I'm like you know that's so far from where I am but at the same time when I heard this brene brown quote about sometimes winning is just getting off the block and getting wet that changed my perspective I started doing a lot more stuff because I changed what winning meant

Sam Parr

also sean I'd like I think a lot of people listen to this stuff and they're like oh jesse's into fitness shit and you know I'm also into I like weightlifting and things like that and I think they like say like well I need to go and do a marathon or a long race that's not true I think that you can do things that fit your interests significantly more because like he's got a hat that says all day running running's your passion like I don't think you have to necessarily do something that falls into that endurance category or whatever is popular

Jesse Itzler

I wanted this year sam I wanna go to one of those silent retreats where you sit in a dark room for 2 or 3 days but listen we're going into a new year alright and I'm giving suggestions and I recognize that everyone is in a different has a different dynamic time is different finances are different but I what what I'd love to get out of this call is I just wanna fire people up for the opportunity that we all have to have an incredible 2025 you know go master something go learn a language you know go learn a certain skill go volunteer you know do something that makes you proud of yourself at the end of 2025 do something that makes you feel accomplished and proud of yourself at 2025 now I'm not saying go ride your bike across america just because I did that no not at all but do something that you look back on the year and be like this was this was amazing you know and I'm just saying that there's a lot of things that don't cost money if you're intentional if you schedule it which we'll get to in a second and you play a little bit of offense

Sam Parr

so masochi kevin's rule

Jesse Itzler

the third thing that I do is very simple you know I found this works a lot better for me than new year's resolutions and maybe maybe different for other people but rather than doing all these goals and stuff which I like can never accomplish I very simply every quarter I add a winning habit to my life for for example like I I don't drink enough water I'm gonna drink a 100 ounces of water you know as a new habit I'm never gonna be late to a meeting I'm gonna add a 10 minute a day meditation practice you know I I I don't know but like I

Sam Parr

what habit did you add last quarter

Jesse Itzler

this is crazy but like I'm so inflexible and I found something on youtube that

Sam Parr

was basically inflexible

Jesse Itzler

you know I can't even touch my knees you know so I found something that's like 5 exercises you should do before you have a cup of coffee like first thing you do when you wake up so I've been doing these 5 stretches it takes 6 minutes pretty much every day and I could send you guys the link they're really easy so that but but my? Is we we are a product of winning habits winning routines and a winning mindset that's what we all want we wanna have winning routines winning habits and a winning mindset and by layering in imagine if you did a let's let's just say we took a 5 year look on life my life's gonna radically change in 5 years I have a 15 year old son he'll be at college my my kid my little boys now they're gonna be in high school like I like to look at things in 5 year windows because you know like if your parents are in the are are elderly they might not be here in 5 years like mine mine were 5 years ago mine aren't now like your life changes freaking like this gotta think about this stuff and imagine in 5 years you just did the three things that I said you had 5 insane experiences you added 30 mini adventures that you wouldn't have had by taking you know 6 days of 365 a year I mean come on man and now you added you know you added 20 winning habits you're fucking jason bourne you're jason bourne and like this is not difficult

Sam Parr

well so all this stuff I'm like this is badass okay tell me how you plan it and how you actually put it in practice you're saying like you're a you're a product of your habits and things like that what's the habit of planning and like thinking of these things and actually getting them on the calendar or whatever

Jesse Itzler

so I don't know you know people listening to this audio or video but this is my entire 2025

Shaan Puri

if you're not on youtube he's holding up the big ass calendar

Jesse Itzler

so so I as soon as I know I have something for me I put it on my on my calendar on paper I write it down now there's a lot of research around writing it down versus putting it in your phone goals that are written down versus you know there's a ton of research around that but as soon as I have any of these trips I put it down I put all my big events for the year down immediately last day of school 1st day of school if you have kids 1st day of camp if they go to camp last day of camp fam spring break trips date nights with my wife every I take a a quarterly staycation or trip with my wife my wife and I have our own little system we have a date night once a week wednesdays and then every quarter we try to plan something together could be a like we're going to new york next week but it could be just we're gonna have an overnight staycation here but we try to make sure we have 4 year date nights as much as we can family dinners and then the rest is just family trips

Sam Parr

dude you travel a lot

Jesse Itzler

I travel a lot but I put it on my calendar because once it's in my calendar now I have permission to say no I wish I could go to dinner with you guys but I'm actually I'm camping out with my kids that weekend like now I'm taking control and I'm dominating the year not other people taking it away from me right oh you can laugh about it but I'm dead serious

Sam Parr

I'm I'm not like this I'm laughing because I think it's cool

Shaan Puri

you know that experiment where they take a jar and they're like alright you have these rocks and these sand fill put them in the put as much as you can in the jar and basically if you put the sand in first you can't put any of the rocks in right because all the little meetings and appointments and zoom calls and everything else takes up all the space versus if you put the rocks in first and then you could pour as much sand will fit all the way around it that's basically kind of like the the model of what you're doing you're basically saying gonna put all the shit I really wanna be intentional about the life experiences I'm gonna remember with the people I care about I'm gonna put those on the calendar first and then I'll let all the little knick knack appointments fill in around that where there's still space and if I do it the other way like most people do where you say yeah yeah like when I have time then I'm gonna do something great and then they never have time nothing ever happens the rocks never get in

Jesse Itzler

exactly and the reason why guys I like to have this on one big visual like look at all 365 days on one page the reason why I like to do that is a I'm visual like I need to see it you know we're all we all kind of think in pictures and we think visually but now 22 things 1 I can see where my gaps are I can see where my gaps are where I have more time available and not 2 I can track towards my goals so much better than versus like if they live you know in my phone and I use my phone for my appointments zoom calls and all that stuff but I don't like scrolling through it to be like oh my marathon and I'm scrolling all the way to november I like to see it like oh I have this many days it's like the road map is visual so for you know to have it all on one big calendar is is really helpful and I'm super spontaneous you know I know that look if you don't plan it it probably won't happen so knowing that after being on earth for 5 and a half decades what do I do I wanna plan as much as I can I wanna get in front of it so I sit with my wife we sync up all of our stuff you know in 2025 we're going to like I said I'm going to finland we have a trip to japan we're going to greece you know we we have put all this down on our account my 2025 is already mapped out and it's insane all I have to do is follow the script now yours might not be as as you know wild as mine but the?

Jesse Itzler

Is you control it and you can map out this incredible year

Sam Parr

do you but do you are you picking those quarterly habits as well as those mini adventures

Jesse Itzler

I'm not I'm not because I'm open I'm I'm always listening to people and and when I was when I had marquis jet which is a company that I had I started with my partner when I was I don't know 29 30 years old my dad owned a plumbing supply house I had no relationship with money we never talked about it I had no business experience I didn't know shit and all of a sudden I had this private jet company we're flying 3,000 of the who's who of pop culture ceos top ceos athletes entertainers and I'm getting access to these people and I'm really curious I'm 30 years old and anytime I had a minute with anybody at the airport if I was visiting a customer client I would say to them like I wanna know how they lived the rich like you mentioned people here might not be well they might be one day who's gonna tell them how to do where do you vacation what do you do with your money what time do you go to bed how many newspapers do you read I wanna know it all I wanna know the best habits and routines and mindset from the best people on the planet and I became a sponge and I remember asking this guy sitting down with this guy I'm not gonna say his first name is james he was insanely wealthy I'm 30 I have like nothing and I I asked him I said james how do you live rich and he's like he said to me I read and he walked me through his through his day and where he vacations and what he does with his money and how much gold he has buried in his backyard and all this shit never forgot it one thing that he said to me one thing he said to me he goes and I take 3 hours a day for myself and I'm like I can never do that well he goes no no it's cumulative I'm like well what does that look like for you james he's like oh it might take a 30 minutes sun in the morning I might take a little time at lunch to read go for a walk work out da da da da da at the end of the day it's about 3 hours a day for myself and I I was like since then I'm like and I was like why and he was like well you know if you check the you box you show up as a parent husband ceo boss employee so much better you don't resent your wife or your husband or your partner for taking away time of the things you wanna do all this stuff long story short I started taking 2 or 3 hours a day right after that meal I'm like it works for him I'm not gonna wait till I have a bazillion dollars I'm gonna do it now so time rich something that we talked about earlier doesn't mean you have to be rich to be time rich you have to be organized scheduled and allocated to prioritize you and that's all I'm saying for 2025 you might say jesse this is hokey pokey fine but all I'm telling you is carve out time for you to give you adventure make you feel a cop work's always gonna be there it's always gonna be there

Sam Parr

on a week to week basis do do do you make a list of your to dos for the week before

Jesse Itzler

yeah so I look at my week on sunday night I take it from my calendar and from my phone and I put it on paper I use a planner but you can also just write a piece of paper and I write down my day it's like I can move things around and then I can prepare better I know it's I like to have a week at a glance view of everything and then and then the last thing I would say this is less like a little bonus thought for people is remember when you were a kid and I don't know if your parents gave you vitamins did they give you vitamins when you were a kid like for school

Shaan Puri

flintstones vitamins for sure

Jesse Itzler

yeah flintstones right I had flintstones vitamins as a kid

Sam Parr

it was a kid

Jesse Itzler

like anti flintstone vitamins but that's that's that would be podcast number 3 the the the the vitamins were like you know you take one vitamin and it had like you know 500% of everything you needed in every category in like one little pill and I think that's unbelievable but you know you took your daily vitamins and it checked all the boxes so I have my own version of this that I do sam and sean that that works really well so like if you made a list imagine you had all the time in the world you could do whatever you wanted to do every day well how would you spend your day well I know exactly what I would wanna do I love saunas I love cold plunges I love running biking swimming and exercise I love doing breath work I love taking walks with my wife I love playing with my kids like I'm very clear on what it is by the way no word I say after I say I love buying art but I don't those are the things I love to do they're very simple I inherited that from a very simple man my dad the let's say I have 10 of those things on my list okay those are my vitamins those are the things that make me strong that I need every day I try to do 2 take 2 or 3 of those vitamins I can't do them all but I I try to do 2 or 3 so today it's we're recording this now it's 1 o'clock but I've already gone for an hour run and I've taken an hour sauna so of the 3 hours I allocate for myself I've already done about 2 of them so like my day is good and I've taken 2 of my vitamins so now when I show up for you guys I'm all in I'm not outsourcing like we talked about I'm all in you know because I've checked me I'm showing up so much better that is so freaking important and that's every day for me

Shaan Puri

this is amazing this is awesome is there before I ask you my my kind of I have one burning question before I ask you my burning question is there anything else in the planning how to make a kick ass defining 2025 is there anything else we missed before we do that do that or were those the big ones

Jesse Itzler

I think at like a high level trying to get people to rethink how they approach the new year I think that you know just get started on those things I mean you might not have it all laid out I don't have it all laid out yet but put the stuff you wanna do down first on a calendar or wherever you wanna put it and build a year that you're super proud of because let me let me just say this sean we don't get a lot of years we don't get a lot of years and we don't know how many years we're gonna get so shame on you if you waste 2025 because you wanna like oh I'll just do it neck the following year don't like time doesn't work like that you don't have the luxury of like I'll you don't dictate the pace sometimes the pace dictates you and circumstances change and like you know everyone thinks like I guarantee you everybody here knows they're gonna die that's listening to this but I guarantee less than 1% of our listeners have their graveyard plot picked out because they don't think they're gonna die anytime soon they don't think that like your life could change like yeah my life's been turned upside down I have people that my friends are getting diagnosed with shit you know like it changes man you can go outside and someone could be texting and you get smacked it just it could go like that you don't know so you know I'm 56 years old the average american lives to be 78 I don't know I'm not really good at math but that's 22 years if I'm average and you know I was on the lake this summer I didn't see a lot of 78 year old guys wakeboarding like the the years that you have to do in ultraman what do they say I was just listening to something they said what 63 is the shelf life of like healthy years or something you know like it's insane so you and it and

Sam Parr

it's also insane that you plan these you like well I'll get to it when I'm older but then when you're older it's like I don't wanna fucking do this you know what I mean like you know I've always criticized actually warren buffett where he talks about like delayed gratification and things like this and I'm like dude you you've been the man for years like you enjoy it enjoy that shit now like sometimes patience is actually

Jesse Itzler

time rich man you don't have to be rich to be time rich

Shaan Puri

that book that went kind of viral this this year or last year die with 0 talks about some of these principles but he has a great story about one of them that he was talking about when he was in his twenties and he was on his career ladder climb he was at some investment bank and his buddy who we worked with him they're kinda both 23 years old or whatever was like hey dude what if we just go to europe backpacking for like you know 6 weeks he's like how are you gonna get 6 weeks off he's like I'm not I gotta quit and like I hope I'll be able to get the job when I come back but like I'm gonna do this trip and he was like dude you're crazy that's like irresponsible I'm gonna do the responsible thing and he didn't do that and he's he told himself he would do it you know maybe next year or the year after that maybe they some some reason he'd be able to do it in the future so you know he's like as soon as he came back after 6 weeks he didn't have the job back but he he met up with the guy he's like from the glow on this dude's face I realized then I made a mistake and he talks about how when he was 33 then 10 years later he finally like took a career break and he's like went to europe he's like it's not so cool sleeping in a hostel when you're 33 you know it's a different he's like I learned that some things you can't even just it's not even just doing them later is worse he's like it's just not the same thing like that's a 23 year old trip I didn't do it when I was 23 I did it when I was 33 or 34 and I had to have a whole different experience there was no going back to that

Jesse Itzler

I think it's really important to say yes to adventure and it's never the right time you know like it's never gonna be like oh I have 8 days that are clean you have to make it you have to create that you know and I think that's a really important message like it's never the right time you're always I'm gonna miss the basketball game you you know there there there's always a sacrifice but if you don't do it you you just you you you know you have regret you just regret it you just don't get it back

Shaan Puri

well you said yes to an adventure you're coming to our basketball camp with mister beast so we'll be seeing you in january for one of those jesse thanks for coming on and if you're listening to this you made it to the end you're fired up like I am we're giving away a few $1,000 of these calendars so go to jesse what's the site where people buy the calendar I have the code here but

Jesse Itzler

it's just jessieitzler.com I think you can get it on my on my website

Shaan Puri

so go to jessieitzler.com and then use the code win 2025 so win 2025 first 100 people that go through go there from this podcast will will get a free big ass calendar but if you didn't just buy the thing and start planning your year if you're not convinced at this. Something's wrong with you

Jesse Itzler

I had so much fun on the first go around you know sam gave me a little put me put me under the the microscope a little bit I loved it I loved it that's his job and I get it and you guys are awesome man like I always get a lot of dms about our our first episode so to get an invitation back was meant a lot to me man so so you'll get a handwritten letter from me

Sam Parr

I think people don't realize because I mean we host a lot of these and I think people forget this but like I saw sean writing like I like take notes like I

Shaan Puri

have like just these are my golden nuggets from this episode these are you know my pen dive halfway through

Sam Parr

we appreciate you doing this thank you very much

Shaan Puri

until round 3 jesse thank you

Jesse Itzler

thank you