Daily Motivations - TIME IS RUNNING OUT

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

TIME IS RUNNING OUT! Stop procrastinating and do it NOW! Speaker: Jesse Itzler If you find this episode enjoyable, kindly RATE, SHARE, and FOLLOW for more Instagram - @daily_motivationsorg Facebook- @daily_motivationsorg Kindly support us Support Us

Are your parents alive? Yeah. How old are your parents feeling like? 70. Okay. And where do they live? In different parts of Washington State. Okay.

Did you see them? Yeah. Pretty often? Once to three times a year. Okay. So let's say they live to be 78, which is the, I hope they don't. But let's say that they live to the average age. So you see them one, you said once to three times?

Yeah. Okay. No, you don't. It means you're going to see them 16. If you see them twice a year, you can see him 16 more times. When you look at it that way, you're like, what? You don't have eight years with them. You have 16 times with them.

And that's the shift in my life. And that's the way I look at things. That's a fundamental shift in the way that I looked at situations six months ago. And it's created an urgency. It's created a need to just not put stuff off and to recognize, like, what's on your list of things that you want to do. So how is turning 50 affecting the way that you think? I'm super curious.

Just realizing that, like, it went so fast and realizing that there's so much that I want to do and being aware that your 70s are a different decade than your 40s and 50s, then you have 20 years left. And when you put it in perspective of how many weekends there are, you know, it's only 52 weekends. And you start to look at it like that, you're like, I'm going to be 80 in 30 years It's scary

You know I got kids It's scary because there's a lot I want to do I feel like I haven't done anything Compared to what I want to do And the opportunities So you know It just how do you manage your time I never thought like that

I'm going to live forever And I'm you know I'm bulletproof and all that stuff And I'm not And when you turn 50 It happens Friends get sick You know

You know take advantage The opportunity that you have at this age and the people that you know to create amazing to build your life resume and sort of talk about all the time you know it's like you have the work resume so what that means nothing if you're not building up your life resume yeah there's only two kinds of moments man like the moments that happen 9-11 you know exactly where you never forget that but you didn't control that just happen there are moments like that where you have no control over that you just remember because they're so vivid. And then you have the moments that you have control over, that you, you know, that you circle,

that you create, that you put in a position to happen. And that's, you know, kind of how you build this life resume. And that's what I would tell, that's what I hope my kids do. You know, I hope they have a life filled with memories. I lived on a monastery with eight monks, four of which have been there for 50 years and 50 years. and I went there for 15 days. I think, you know, the obvious takeaways were just the simplicity of how the monks live is something I think everyone can benefit from. I realize immediately you know already what you're going to miss.

You're going to miss your family and your kids and your friends and some of the comforts. You know, I don't want to give away some of the comforts that I had. But you also realize that how much, at least I did, in my daily life, how much time I spend and worry I spend on things that are irrelevant. And when I released that, I got so insanely creative and had so much energy. Because like thoughts, worry, all that, it's exhausting. Well, I think like everybody, I feel overwhelmed a lot still, even though I'm older now

and I've had some success and failure, but I still have a lot of arrows that come at me all the time. requests for my time, challenges at work, challenges raising kids, being in a marriage, you know, is not easy. I mean, we have a great marriage, but it's not easy work. And it's overwhelming. So for me, I think part of it is always having something big on my calendar that I can look forward to. Every other month, I try to put something on my calendar for a weekend that I can really look forward to. So it helps me get through the tough times. like to have one, at least one really big challenge a year that kind of centers me and keeps me

honest, keeps me honest. And that's really helpful for me. And then the other thing that I do that really helps is I have a journal and I just take everything that's on my head and I keep it in a master journal. Doesn't mean I'm going to get to it. Doesn't mean it goes away, but it gets out of my head and it goes somewhere else to free up space in my head. And then I'll just work it off or I'll prioritize it from the master list, but just the act of taking all the stuff that's in your head, putting it on paper in one place where it lives, is like really freeing and energizing. How do you teach somebody to look for those opportunities, to create those opportunities, because everyone's going to hear the no, but 99.999% of people just accept it.

It's always having the end of the movie in my head and then filling in the script. So I knew I was going to leave there with a sale. I just had to write the script. And the script might change. There might be, you know, call an audible and you might have to rewrite the script. But the end of the script was always the same.

I'm going to run 100 miles. Okay, well, how are you going to do that, Jesse? You know, like, you've never, you're not like a crazy endurance runner. Well, then let's think backwards. But it starts with the end scene in the movie, even the exit. You know, like, okay, we're going to build this to sell.

I don't know who I'm going to sell it to. But that's sort of been always kind of the mentality. And I think the second point to that is once you get over the fear of being embarrassed, no one likes to be embarrassed. But once you get over being scared of being embarrassed, it's super liberating. And it allows you to go into lanes that otherwise you wouldn't go into. And everybody's wired differently. You know, everybody's wired completely different.

and it's hard to rewire someone to be, you know, comfortable taking risk, comfortable with being embarrassed. And I think it comes from having a lot of egg on your face and learning along the way. I've always been like, let me get my foot in the door, and I will figure it out. I will hire people that can help me figure it out. I can go to experts to help me,

but they usually won't help me get in the door. So let me take the first step. And then once you have momentum, you can ride the momentum. So that's always been my MO, you know. It's always been in everything. You mentioned living with the seal, you know, when Gagons came, all that stuff. It's just been like welcoming the unknown and being open to whatever comes of it and learning from it. Well, networking's been a big part of my life forever.

When I was 24 years old, I wrote 10 letters a day, thank you notes, to anyone that came into my life that impacted me. And it could be, even if I didn't know you, but I saw your show, and I was like, you know what, Tom, you've had some amazing guests. I've really benefited from. I would just write you a handwritten note because, one, the handwritten note shows intent. You have to buy the envelope, buy the stationery, write the letter, lick the envelope, get the stamp, put it in the middle. That's a lot different than him send. It's also memorable. How many handwritten letters have you gotten this year? So I literally wrote 3,000 letters in one year.

And it could be to a doorman, a cab drive, it could be anyone. I would just get their car and I would thank them. That was my form of networking. Even to this day, I have a hot 50 list of 50 people that can help me, that I want to stay in touch with, that I make sure every quarter or so I send them a note. And they always comment on it, you know, like, thank you so much. And it's authentic. It's not, I'm not just writing it to write it.

I mean, they have to really have had an impact on me. and it's a meaningful note. It makes me feel great and it makes the recipient feel attached to me in a different way. At an early age, I understood the importance of that. The people that you meet in your 20s rise up in their 30s

or in great positions of power in their 40s. You don't know in your 20s who's going to make it and who's not. So, you know, you treat everybody properly and respectfully and you stay in touch and very often those relationships merge their heads years later, decades later. Pretty much all of us, myself included.

We live in a world of routine. Routines are comfortable, but routines can be a rut. And when you're in a routine, the clock goes fast. It goes fast. I was 35 yesterday. When you're in a routine, get up, get the kids ready, taking the carpool, go work,

come out, boom, day over, next day. And then if you don't get out of the routine and take advantage of those five weekends a year creating whatever, you wake up in your 60 and 70 or 50 or 40 or whatever and you're like, man, my knees messed up. I always wanted to do that, but now I can't do that. Man, you know, like, you just don't know.

I just said to my wife as I turned 50, like, let's have a big, I want to have a big celebration. This is a monumental birthday, and it's really affecting me how I think. You know, it's like, I didn't think it would, but turning 50 is having a big impact on me. And I said, when I was 25, I had a big party in New York City where I was living. And I want to kind of replicate that.

And she said, wow, honey, you know, think about all the things that you've accomplished in the last 25 years. And I'm like, I appreciate it. But compared to, I haven't done anything. Compared to what I, the potential and what I want to do, you know. And she said, well, then think about the things that you love to do over those, over the last 25 years. years. What are the things that you've loved to do? And who have you loved to do them with? And for me, it's been the races, the travel, this, and the that. Civil look. Put as much of that on your plate as you can with the people that you love to do it with in the next 25 years of your life.

And that's sort of my mission statement. We invest so much time in our work resume, which is important. But I think it's equally, if not more important, to build your life resume because that's really an indication of who you are and what you're becoming. And that's really a true look into your true body of work.