My First Million - If you want a rich life, watch this before 2026

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Get Jesse's guide to plan a massive 2026 (his exact system for building billion-dollar companies): https://clickhubspot.com/akd Episode 780: Shaan Puri ( ⁠https://x.com/ShaanVP⁠ ) flies to Jesse Itzler’s ( https://x.com/JesseItzler ) home to plan an epic 2026.  Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (6:00) Step 1: Get Light (11:30) Step 2: Close the books (24:38) Step 3: Plan your year (42:16) Step 4: 8 boxes — Links: • The Big A## Calendar - https://thebigasscalendar.com/  • Jesse’s YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHs5VVcrc-CgIpx1G3ioZ-A  — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com  • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano //

That is un-frigan believable. That made me cry. This is Jesse Hitzler, and he's got the craziest resume you've ever seen. He sold a private jet company to Warren Buffett. He helped build Zico Coconut Water, and he's the only guy who can say that 50 cent was his intern. But I don't admire Jesse just because he's rich financially. I admire him because he leads such a rich life. He runs these crazy endurance races.

He goes on adventures with his friends, and I've always wondered, how does one guy do so much? As Jesse says, we don't lack time, we lack a system. So that's why I'm here at his house today to learn the exact system that he uses to plan his year. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel.

Okay. Jesse, teach me how to plan my year. Listen, this is so exciting, man. Thanks for being here. Yeah, I mean, first of all, before we even get started, I think it's just really important to talk about why we're here. I don't take years lightly. You know, we don't get a lot of them and we're all so busy.

And I feel like in general, most people plan their life around work and I think it's really important to plan work around your life. In other words, we tend to play life on defense, like our calendars fill up with other people's requests for time, Zoom calls and meetings and weddings and appointments and kids stuff.

Before you know it, like, what do we have to show for a whole year? Right. So we're sitting right now in December and do you feel like you had a great 2025? Like, what were some of your highlights of 2025? So we had a few events that I thought were pretty awesome. So you went to one of them.

In January, we planned a big event, and we did it. It's called Hoop Group. So that's kind of one of my favorite parts of the year. I feel like because of our conversation last year, I picked a Misogi, which we'll talk about, but like this sort of grand challenge for the year. And I did it. And I'm really proud of myself for doing that.

And I kind of know that I really would have, I wouldn't have done it this year. It would have been on my Sunday list. Right. And then there's other things that were I kind of procrastinated or like, you know, I couldn't tell you, what happened in April? I have no idea.

You know, like there were some months that just flew by because I wasn't very intentional. So I did like some of the things that I feel really proud of. Like I started coaching, I told you, I started coaching a high school basketball team. We, you know, launched a new project for our work and we really like poured ourselves

into that. So there's a few things that I was pretty intentional about, but I would say there were many months that flew by. Which is fine. Yeah, but I want to be better at it. It showed me that, you know, this is super important. Like, you know, I've always thought of myself as the CEO of my company, but not the CEO of my life. Got it. Well, the way this came about, just to give a little bit of background, is my life got very busy. You know, I have multiple businesses. I have four children. I'm married. I had elderly parents I was taking care of. I have friends that I want to see. I have races that I want to do. There was just so much that I wanted to do. I didn't have a system for it. So I would have all these ideas and I would leave like the end of the year. I'd be like,

oh, I didn't do this. I feel unaccomplished and like all left all the stuff on the table and I just kept getting older and older. And as more and more stuff came on my plate, I needed a system. I was never taught a system. No one ever said, hey, this is how you map out your year. They just kept throwing more stuff in me. So, over the course of the last probably 20 years, an evolution happened. I started to figure out why was this year better than last year and this and that. And I have this system that I've been using.

And just it's not based on theory. I didn't Google it. It's based on trial and error. And I'll share it with you and I'll walk you through it. And if, you know, we'll help map out your year. And if anyone here is listening, if there's a couple of things here that help you have a little bit more efficiency next year, or get you excited to do something that maybe you wouldn't have done, then the next 20 minutes or whatever are going to be very well worth your time.

So for starters, before you even start anything, you know, here we are at the end of the year. We're coming into a new year. The first thing that I like to do is I get, as I go into the new year, and I call it getting light. I want to come into 2026, fired up, hitting the ground, not playing catch up, like, oh, I have to do all these emails. I didn't clear my clock.

I want to be ready to go. go. No baggage. No baggage. Light. And literally I want to feel light. I even like the term getting light. So getting light means closing out the year, you know, the proper way. So we have a little jar here. Just step one, getting light. You can see that it's empty because there's going to be nothing in your jar when you're done. So getting light starts for me at home. So the first thing that getting light means getting rid of all the apps on your phone that you don't use, getting rid of canceling all the subscriptions that you don't use that you're paying, you know, stuff. Go into your closet and donating all the clothing that you don't wear. Now,

that might sound insignificant. It's very significant. It's a sign that, like, of newness. It's a sign of like I'm coming into the year, getting rid of stuff that I don't need anymore. It's your desk. Coming in and not having clutter everywhere. It's your filing cabinet. It's your car. Is your car messy? Do you have your insurance in your cars? They're like getting everything tight. And by way, that whole process to me could take like an hour. Right. It's not like I'm talking about like, oh, I need a week. It's like your emails.

I get my emails to zero. Delete, save, respond. Like right now, forget email. That's how many text messages, unread text messages I have. I don't even know how many. That's 815. 815. So I'm coming into the new year with 815 obligations.

815 guilt trips. that I, you know, mistakes that I've made, basically, if I don't clear that out. So you told me before this, you said, hey, step one, get light, I can't do that here because I'm at your house. And so I did it and a couple of things that I learned right away.

First of all, just doing the simplest action gave me momentum. Because planning my year felt big and heavy. It's like, oh God, I gotta know what I want in life. And it's like, dude, I haven't known that for 37 years. Am I sure today's the day I could do this? Versus what I did was I went to my car and like, you know the cup holder area?

Like, I got little kids. So that is like nom. That, you know, that is that... I don't know. There's a whole history of like life in that little cup holder. So I just cleaned out the cup holder. The simplest possible action. And right away, I was like, felt a little lighter, right?

Like one layer off my back. And then I did it to my desk. I did it to my subscriptions. I canceled $1,300 of monthly subscriptions of just random apps and software that we've been signed up for. So I already started to get light and feel pretty amazing. I cleaned up my home gym. which was like, I didn't have to. You know, nobody else works out there, but I do.

And like, those are places I go every day, my car, my gym, my desk. I think it's highly significant. It's the, you're describing momentum. And momentum is not to be underestimated. You know, if you start the first week, you come back from the holidays and, like, everything's a mess. And, like, you've got to play catch-up. You're going through 815 texts. Is that a good way to start the year?

Would you rather, like, do all that now in this little cleanup period, that we're in now, you know, get it all done, and then come in, like, ready to, I'm in attack mode. You know, I don't want to feel like I have a knapsack or weight on me. I want to come in an attack mode. So if you're listening to this, I highly encourage you to spend a little bit of time and get organized, get light, get rid of things. And I would think about also part of that just mentally, like subtraction, like, what's heavy in your life? You know what I mean? Like, what relationships are heavy, you know, what obligations and commitments can you cut down just to get a little bit more lighter? And it doesn't mean it to make changes immediately, but I would put a little bit of

thought into that. Let's take a quick break. We're covering a lot of information in this episode. So the team at HubSpot did something really cool. They took my notes from talking with Jesse and they turned it into a guide on how to plan a massive 2006 in less than 60 minutes. If you want those notes, you can get them right now in the link in the description. Now, back to the episode. So that's the first step. And, you know, like I said, I go through everything from my closet to my emails, my subscriptions, to my car, to my...

Where do you start? What's your... Closet. I start in the closet. And by the way, if you went up to my closet right now, maybe you guys can film it on the way out. I have seven bags, seven bags of donate. I have a very simple rule. If there's a jump ball 50-50, like, should I keep this or not, then I just say someone

needs it more than me. And it's easy to part. Because sometimes it's hard to part with stuff. Maybe it's sentimental. or I'll take a picture of it if I don't wear it, I'll just keep it. Or I'll throw it in a box. It's like a sentimental box.

But I don't want a zillion things hanging in my closet I never wear. Right. How about this? When I walked in my closet this morning and I had all these little hangers with nothing on it and I had like seven things to grab,

I felt good. No, I'm not kidding. Like, I felt good. Like, I didn't feel like I was wasting clothing or space or time. I know. Sounds ridiculous. Like, how does this fit into planning your year

or whatever? it all fits into how you feel. Right. You know? It's a psychological momentum win to start. So love that. So that's which one? That's jar number one.

JAR number one. Step one, get light. All right. There we go. What's number two? Closing out your year. So every good business. So after you get light, you know,

what does every good business do at the end of the year? Close the books. They close the books. They have a review session. They think about what worked, what didn't work, et cetera. So I like to call. close out my year. So that process for me is pretty simple. The first thing that I do is I take inventory on me. So if you planned the best year in the world and you had the most unbelievable

things happen, but you had several things in your life that were broken, maybe it was your marriage or your relationship, maybe it's your finance, your health, I don't know. Even if you had this windfall of money or whatever, if a couple of the key pillars are operating at a five out a 10 and a 1 to 10, it's like a multiplier, you know, like it's not going to multiply the way that it should. So what I like to do is I like to identify like, where are my weaknesses? What are the things I have to fix next year? So what I do is... This is the life audit. The little life audit. It's like it's a person, like a business audit. This is my little life audit. And this is what I... You have to be honest with yourself without beating yourself up too much.

Like, what's the psychology around this, right? Because I want to be, you know, like, I'll tell you one right now, right? So like, I'm actually going to do this. this, this is not like theory. So I think we should actually fill this out for me, at least. So this is fitness. Let me put you through it. So I want you to just imagine you had a blender. So anyone here could do this.

Imagine you had a blender. You're making a smoothie. Yeah. Or making a Sean smoothie. I want you to take all the different categories in your life. And don't rate them. But just in general, think about what you have. So you have finances.

That's a big part. It goes in your blender. Fitness. Your health and wellness goes in the blender. Friendships. Marriage. Family. etc. Where you live, where you work, put everything in the blender and then shake it all up.

And now on a one to ten, with ten being the best score and one being rock bottom, rock bottom. And you put all these in together. What do you think your overall happiness number is? Because at the end of the day, we want to feel good. What would be your number? And you can be honest with me. Yeah, I think it's an eight. Okay, so it's an eight. So what I love about this exercise is you put all this thing and your brain, immediately goes to a 10 and it subtracts the two or three things that bring it down. So what are the two or three things if you don't mind sharing? Yeah, so it would be the fitness one. So I had a goal with my fitness, which was, this is it.

This is going to be the year. I'm going to get the best shape of my life. And I was like, I'm going to build these healthy habits to where by default, I got to be in the best shape of my life. That was the goal. And if I'm honest with myself, I made some progress, but not at the proportion of how important it is to me. It wasn't some important. It was really important, but I only got some progress, not a lot of progress.

So that was the one where that was like go from a 10-09 right away because I didn't get as far along there, not as proud of myself as I would be if I had done this the way I intended to. Right. And what was the other? The other one is in the work category. So I had a great year financially. But my goal this year was to actually find another project to pour my creative energy into.

So the podcast has been this amazing. thing over the last five years, but I kind of wanted to figure out my next five years what that would be. And I wandered around for a little bit, trying to, is it this, is it that? And I ultimately landed on this book project and I started on it, but like I didn't get as far as I thought. I would, if I'm honest, even now, I wander a little bit of like, is that, is that the right, am I making the right decision? So there's some uncertainty there of like, am I going to use my talents the way that I want to use them. I'm going to channel them towards something that's cool and interesting and matters to me that I'll be proud of, you know, years from now as it develops.

So a couple of quick thoughts. So for starters, an 80, you know, an 8 is an 80. 80. If my kid comes home with an 80 on a test, that's a B minus. So B minus is good, but not, you don't want to go through life as a B minus. Two, you identify two things that you probably want to put more energy to in 2026. So like most people are probably going to to have two or three things and it's going to be usually finance or relationship or health or whatever, the main buckets. Those are the things you want to put a little bit more energy into and as themes. And you're going to want to pick one or two things that are going to get you excited because no one wants to work on their weaknesses. You know, like if you're having a bad marriage

or something, like that's hard to like the energy to repair that and this and that. But, you know, that's something you have to put energy. We gravitate towards what's easy and we're good at it. We get immediate feedback and momentum from it, right? Right. So part of closing out the year is just doing a little bit of self-reflection. I mean, this is a deep dive and like a little bit personal, but identifying like what are the things I got to work on going forward and what am I going to put a little energy in? So for you, fitness, coming up with some newness and work, et cetera, could be something, could be something that you want to focus in. We'll get to in a minute in 2026. So I do a little review of what worked, what didn't work. If I have a calendar,

obviously I have my big ass calendar. What I like to do is I like to do is I like to go through my phone and I'll write down all the highlights. My calendar is my highlight reel. I like to write down all the highlights. Maybe it's my kid's football game or maybe it was a concert I went to and just make sure that I have a full recap of the year. So I can look at it on one piece of paper. It's the best exercise.

I can look at it on one piece of paper. See where my gaps were. See what I accomplished. Because a lot of people forget, oh my God, I forgot that we went. I took this weekend trip or I went to this. Yeah, I can't tell you what I did in much. So do a thorough review on one big piece of paper. Go back through your phone.

And then, by the way, now you have a great time capsule, too, of 2025. So I do a little personal audit. I go through my entire year. Again, it takes like 20 minutes. So, like, I have one from this, like, in November. It was my first basketball practice as a coach. I had one weekend where we just went on, like, AI and made songs. So it was like, we just basically became musicians for a weekend.

And we, and we had a demo. like on Monday where we all played our tracks for each other. And so I put that in there. Then I was like two like books that I read are an interesting thing that I read. And a conversation I had with my buddy Trevor about fear and the stuff he's learned in his research. And so I just try to like write those now so that I kind of have it, I have it, you know, more at my fingertips. Yeah, yeah. I love it.

And then one thing that I love to do is I write handwritten letters. I love to spend a little bit of time and write thank you letters to people. that like, hey, Sheldon, you know what, there's 8 billion people in the world. You chose me to be on your podcast. There's 8 billion people. Thank you so much for the opportunity to address your audience.

I love sending those out. So I brought some because I want to actually do it this year. So when I'll even do, you know, a couple of them today, but I'll do some more after we wrap up. But the thing that I was going to ask you is like, how do you, like when I sat down to do this, I was like, where do I start with this?

What am I saying? So are you using the review to basically be like, oh, my friend who helped teach my son how to drive, you know, is that kind of how it's all feeding one into the next? My kids, football coaches, people that had tutors, anyone that had an impact on me, podcasts that I was on, friends that I did races with. It could be someone from afar. Like, Sean, you don't even realize this, but your podcast had a big impact on me. I'm a fan. And I'm just, this checks several boxes for me. Selfishly, it's a great networking tool because everybody reads their mail. Not everybody reads their email or their text,

but everybody reads their mail. And there's a different energy that goes into a handwritten letter. Writing it, getting a stamp, licking it, taking it to the mailbox. Someone receives that differently than da-da-da-da-send. Right.

So there's a different energy. And you're not outsourcing this. You're not giving this to an assistant somewhere. No. So part of it's selfish on planting seeds as a networking tool and just a thank you note. Like, you know, we built a relationship and this is part of that process.

Two, like, the recipient feels great about it. Like, oh, my God, this guy took enough time to handwrite me a letter. Like, that makes them feel good. I've been doing this since I'm 21 years old. Even this year, I'll write 25 letters. You know, I'll write it to some of my partners at the Atlanta Hawks.

Say, guys, great year. Thank you guys. You know, people that have stepped in for me. Someone offered to do a speech when I was sick for me. Just unbelievable gestures. I recognize them. I recognize them. I'm a goal-oriented monkey.

What's a number I should shoot for? Even 10 is amazing. 10 to 25. You can do them on the plane. You can do them while you're watching a football game. Probably takes about three minutes per. Oh, that's perfect. I'll do this on my flight back.

Yeah. I can either watch a shitty airplane movie or I can just kind of flood myself with being grateful and spreading some good karma out to the world. There's no rule to it, but I think getting 25 out, look, you do it for 10 years. you send 250 thank you notes,

handwritten letters to people like... How many are you doing? How many have you gotten? How many handwritten letters did you get last year thanking you? I remember I got one from Joe. There you go. Yeah.

That's it. I didn't write you one yet for... No. Okay, it's coming. Well, I have a separate list for people that don't write me thinking of that. You remember Joe. Yeah.

This is what I'm saying. You know, like, you don't have to be a genius or a bazillionaire to write a handwritten letter and that's an inkstain in your brain, you probably never forget it, you know? So. Ink stain in the brain, I like that. Yeah. So that's another strategy of closing out the year, part of my process.

I already have one. I have one for Haley. Haley, shout out to Haley. Haley is what I call my food girlfriend. She's my nutritionist who will call me, she calls me every morning, 8 a.m. and she says, you know, what's the plan for today? How did you do yesterday? And she's like a food therapist, basically, talking through more of the psychology versus a meal plan. And, you know, thank you to, I already know for her. is like, thank you for sticking with me. Like, I know I pay you for this, but like, sometimes I flake out on the calls for two days in a row.

I go dark for three days. Sometimes I say I'm going to do something I don't. But I feel like she always shows up with like full faith, not just like doing an obligation. And I really like, I appreciate that. You know, like it takes a lot like she believes in me. And I think that's one of the best gifts you can give someone. She gave me that. So I'll use that as my Haley note.

You know, step one, I'm trying to get light coming into the year with energy. Step two, I'm closing out the year. And by the way, you can use your own strat. If you don't want to write a handwritten letter, I'm just telling you what I do. I want to get light, whatever that looks like for you. I want to close out my year. This is how I do it.

But however you want to do it, again, summarizing your year, closing the book on it, memorializing it, reviewing it like you would, as the CEO of your business, really important. And super fun. That might be like, oh my God, I didn't do shit this year. Well, okay, good. Wake up call.

We got a whole new year to attack. You know, so it's just an honest assessment. And identifying with the blender, what it is I really need to spend a little bit time on. That doesn't mean that's my goal for next year. It's just like being aware of the pain points. Right. Because you're not going to be a 9.9 if you have three pain points that are going to suck you down, no matter how much energy you put into the year.

Right. You've got to fix the pain points. So this is cool because it's kind of like a measure twice cut once type of deal where we haven't even got to the thing I'm going to do next year, I think that's how I would typically have done this was resolutions. You know, at the end of the year, what's a resolution? Ah, this. And it's a should do.

It's not what I'm going to do. I don't put a date on it. I don't really use the momentum from getting light and reviewing my year and taking account of what's going on to make that plan. I just kind of jump into it. So I like this. Can I just jump in for one second? I think that anybody can have a good year. Like things are going to happen and get an invitation to something.

There's going to be a high. highlight, like to have an okay year, you can do it. Who the fuck wants to have an okay year? You don't get a lot of years. Right. You're not hoping for a great year. I can have a good year. Maybe a couple of people invite me on a great trip.

Someone says, we're going to go to the Super Bowl. That's amazing. Or I can sit down and say, what's going to light me up that I'm so excited about this year that, like, I wake up and I have no pressure. I know that if I execute this, and this isn't saying I'm not working. This is not, I'm just planning me before my work. Work's always going to be there. I'm going to have a, I'm going to work a lot more hours than I'm going to do this.

But that's different. I'm talking about the stuff that like at the end of the day, your six-year-old kid, your young, you know, your kids are going to like, you're going to have a photo book like that. There's no Zoom calls in my book. There's no picture of me on Zoom. in that book. That's stuff that I did that immediately made me smile. That's what this is. I'm going to show you how to do it right now. Our goal is to get you excited about this, right? It's not to plan a perfect year or whatever. It's to make sure that 2026 doesn't fall through

your fingertips, right? And we have a lot to show for it. So at the end, and this is exciting to me. There's a lot of days in here to, you don't have to do everything every day. We got a lot of time to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish. All right? That's just for starters. It's a big, long runway that we have. So I do three things every year as the backbone of my planning,

and this is where I start. Now, again, the key is to plan my life first, so my work comes around it, not what most people do, which is their work fills up, and then whatever gaps they try to fill in, we flip that script upside down. We're going to play aggressive.

We're going to plan aggressive. We're going to think about the things that we love to do, that we want to put our energy into. We only have a limited amount of energy. We want to put our energy into the things that excite us or move the needle in the buckets that matter. So to ensure that for me,

I do three very simple things. Two of them are planning, and one of them is more habit. You talked about resolutions, but I like something that I do better than resolutions. So there's an old Japanese ritual called the Masogi. You know the term. And the notion around a Misogi

is you do one big year-defining thing every year. This is really important. At the end of the year, you want to have something to show for it. Last year, for you, it might have been like, man, I launched this insane three-day basketball camp with billionaires. I launched that in 2025. Maybe it was I, you know, wrote, I'm launching a book, whatever it is. You want to have a podcast, whatever. One big, really big year-defining thing that you have. To the point that if I were to say to you right now, what did you do? in 20, if you ask me, what did you do in 2015? I wrote Living with the CL. 2017, I launched 29 or 29, a business that I had.

2021, I did a race called Ultraman. 23, I rode my bike across America. 2024, I did rim to rim to rim. 2025. Every year, you should be able to, you know, and if you can do that, how will you? I'm 37. So if you can do that from, if you started now and you had one big year defining goal and you live to be 87, you'd have 50.

you'd have 50 monumental things that you've accomplished in your life. That's a heck of a ride. Heck of a ride. So the first thing I encourage people to do is think about in 2026 at the end of the year in December. By the way, if you didn't even do anything else, but you just did this, you're going to like, you win. You win. What's the one thing you want to look back on and be like, you know, I did this this year?

and you might not know what that is now, but when it is, put that down on the damn calendar ASAP because that is a really important. And I don't think it should be something like, it's got to be hard and big. Truly you're defining. Not like, oh, I took a trip to Italy.

That's a trip to Italy. Today's episode is brought to you by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data? That's like reading a book, but then tearing out four-fifths of the pages. Point is, you miss a lot. And unless you're using HubSpot, the customer platform that gives you access to the data you need to grow your business,

the insights that are trapped in emails, call logs, transcripts, all that unstructured data makes all the difference because when you know more, you grow more. And so if you want to read the whole book, instead of just reading part of it, visit HubSpot.com. So we put down the big Mistogi. That's one step. The second thing that I do is every other month I put something on my calendar that I normally wouldn't have done. I named this Kevin, Kevin's rule after my friend Kevin kind of taught me. about this. But every other month, I do something. So, like, instead of watching the Georgia

football game, I might take my kids fishing. We might go to a concert. I might go visit my car. I have a little mini-adventure because it's the same multiplier. If every other month, you do one thing you normally wouldn't have done, this is critical, mission critical. If you can't do that, you're really out of balance. Like, you can't take one day out of every six weeks to do something for yourself. Like, what are we doing? So if you do plan like six little mini-adventures, whatever they are, you put them on your calendar. And, you know, I could show you mine in a second. Well, same thing.

If you're 37 and you live to be 87, so you'd have 50, I just learned how to play the piano moments, you're defining things. But now you'd have 300 mini adventures on top. Like, just think about that, man. 50 year-defining things and 300 mini-adventures you wouldn't have had. That is, who's doing that? Right. You know, and I'm not talking, oh, I need a lot of money.

I don't own my own. It's easy for you to say, no, anybody can go to the polar plunge that's free. Anybody can go to Mount Washington that costs $18 to park and hike. Anybody can do a central park run, you know, enjoy the New York Roadrunners Club or, you know, there's just so much that this country offers if you prioritize it. So the way you prioritize piano. So I do those two things. So that already is, you know, filling up my calendar with some adventure. and then I do what you do.

I think about what are the other big things, what are the other rocks that are important to me? Maybe there are my kids football games or maybe they're a college visit or I'm going to take my kids learning how to drive. I'm going to carve out these days. You know, what are the big memories I want to have and moments?

They go on my calendar first. Again, the goal is to schedule your life so work fills in around it versus work and your life fills around it. There's a very fundamentally different approaches. And so those big rocks go on the calendar first. So, I mean, I might just be kind of bad at this, but I guess for me, I almost feel like, you know,

going in, I feel like I'm limited by time. And then as soon as I say, no, no, I'm going to make time for this, then I realize I'm limited by my own imagination. It's like, I don't even really know what would I do because I'm just not practiced at having these unscripted days, at having these misogas. It's almost hard, like, to think of them. So I guess, like, is it hard for you too?

and also like, how do you get better at that? Well, first of all, just being aware that I want to put stuff on my calendar that's meaningful to me gives you a different awareness into what other people do. So instead of approaching things like, oh, I could never do that.

You know, which is like what I thought before I saw you play the piano, by looking at what other people are doing, that should be inspiration. You know, so you're just looking at the world differently like, oh, Taylor did this race. That would be, I never thought about that. What would it look like?

Sarah just said to me she wants to run the Disney half marathon. We've been married for 20 years, almost. I've never seen her run once in my life. You want to run the Disney half marathon? She just told me now she wants to learn the dance from what? You get inspiration from other people. And so, you know, it's a process.

No one's ever taught anyone to think or look at the world like that. We look at the world that, like, oh, I have a Zoom call. And like, think about how much energy you put into scheduling your work. Meet all staff meetings, Zoom calls, reviews, board meetings, investor meetings, looking at pitch decks, you know, like conference calls, travel, like, we spend, imagine if you took that same energy into planning the most important thing, your life. You look at the world differently.

You'd start to like fill up stuff with like, you know what, I do want to go to the Georgia football game. I do want to go, you know, jump in the water or whatever. I've never been in a sauna. Let me go to one of these sauna places and see what everybody's, what is this thing that's going on? You know, you start to like, and it becomes contagious. infectious, you know, addictive when you start to have this kind of enthusiasm and excitement.

So, you know, we don't get taught that in school. We don't get taught that by anybody. You know, you get taught it by being inspired to say, you know what, I don't want to be an 80. I don't want to be an eight. I want to be a nine, you know. Take it in your own hands and say, like, I want this year to be my highlight reel. You know, another step that we should be in here is just being excited to have the opportunity. Man, just to be, are your parents alive? Yeah. Are your kids healthy, knock on wood?

Yeah. You're 37 years old. Both your parents are alive. All your kids are healthy. How does life get better than that? Like, no, seriously. Like, just being excited about like, Jesus, man, I'm in this position where I can go visit my parents

while they're healthy. I can take my kids to something. Don't blow that opportunity. Don't blow that opportunity. You know, so this isn't about planning the most perfect year at all. It's about planning something that you're excited about, that you feel good about at the end of the year, and you're not just like, if it moves the needle this much for a listener,

they're like, God, I want to be really intentional on how doing more things that are important to me, learning something, spending more time with my family, you know, like, it's going to be worth it. So I do those two things. I put my Mesaugis rule down. I put my Kevin's rules. stuff as they come and I get inspiration.

Hear ideas. I'm going to go visit a college friend. I want to go see my parents. I'm going to take a family trip. I'm going to take my kids out from school and take them to lunch one day and surprise them. It doesn't have to be. But you just want to start lighting shit up. And then you put all your other rocks.

So you have your Kevin's rule, you're Masogi, and then these big rocks, these other moments, whatever these moments are. And then the third thing that I do, after all that stuff is on my calendar, is I don't believe in resolutions. They've never worked for me. Most resolutions fail. But what does work for me, it's not a planning thing, but it's a really good strategy as we go into the next year, is to create one winning habit a quarter. We're all a product of winning habits, winning routines, and a winning mindset. If you get your habits right, your mind right and your routines right, you're going to be in a great spot. So you want to do things that towards that. So for me,

adding one new winning habit, a quarter, that could be like, I don't drink enough water, I'm going to drink 100 ounces a day. I'm going to learn at a 10 minute a day meditation practice. I'll never be late for another meeting. But if you start layering in winning habits, again, cumulatively for this year, now you have eight next year, 12 the year after. Like, you just keep layering it in and adding this stuff and do everything the same. You're going to have a great year, better year, just by definition.

If you add, you learn out of play the piano, you go on these trips, you have some winning habits, you're going to have a better year. And it's going to jumpstart a whole new process for you. Two other things I want to talk about. I think balance is something that you hear a lot of. And I think that balance isn't something that happens day to day. It's something that you should look at over the course of the year. You know what I mean? Because you're going to be in and out.

We talked about seasons when you first got here. when you're learning how to play the piano or maybe you have a big pitch meeting or whatever, you're out of balance. Like, sweetie, I'm not going to be around working late, whatever. But then you're going through a season of recovery or, you know, action or whatever. So the balance over the course of the year

is going to come into play where it could level out. But there's going to be times where it's day-to-day way out of whack. So you can't look at that on a day-to-day level. I would look at it more over the course of a year. The second thing that I would say is on a daily basis or even a weekly basis, I think it's important to think about where do you want to put your energy? What are the things that you want to put your energy into? Usually to me, it's the stuff that's on my calendar. And what don't you want to put your energy towards?

Because we only have a limited amount of energy. So think about your themes for 2026. You know, like for you, it might be fitness. It might be, you know, trying something new at work or launching a new project. or whatever, you know, that would be a good clue of like where you want to put your energy into and especially on a daily basis. So for me, I like to look at my weeks on a Sunday night and look through what's going on on a week at a glance basis to see if like, I don't really need to do this now. That's not super important. I have more important things to do right now

than that. And even on a daily basis, I like to write out the night before what my day looks like people talk about morning routines but I'm a much bigger believer in evening routines because I feel like you can't just wake up and wing it. Oh am I going to do today? Like the competition's too good. The night before lay out your thing. Seven o'clock I'm going to work out. Eight o'clock I'm taking my kids to school. Nine to two I've this two, one, four I shut down like and follow the script, you know, and just to create some more more efficiencies. So that's sort of how I plan my year. Musogi. Then I put my Kevin's rule down. Then I put all my little rocks down, the things that I want to do. I think about where I want to put my energy.

I look at my balance more on like the year versus day-to-day. I don't beat myself up that, oh my God, I'm not home today, you know? And then on a day-to-day level, starting the night before. What do you think most people get wrong when they do this process? Like, they mean well, they're trying, but they fall into like a common trap. What's a common trap? A common trap is having too many goals. More isn't better, better is better. So like you had one specific goal. I'm learn how to play the piano, this year, this song. You know, that's a really great goal and you friggin nailed it. Versus, I'll learn the piano. I'm going to run a marathon. Now you're like all over the place and like you're missing lessons and now your four-month journey became a one-year

journey and everything suffers. So I think a lot of people say, I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to do this. I'm going to like change my whole life. Every area of everything. I think it's too much. Like that. Do you already have your Moseogi for next year or not yet? Yes. What is it? I am going, so I like to do physical things. I'm going to do a 20, 20, I'm calling it the Everesting triathlon. So I'm going to swim 29,000, 29 feet, which is 5.5 miles.

Then bike 29,000, 29 feet, the equivalent of Everest in elevation gain on a bike, which is really, really hard. And then I'm going to do a 29 or 29 event, which is you climb the equivalent of Mount Everest, all in a triathlon format. So like back to back to back. Back to back to back to back to back. I'll sleep because we'll do it like stages, but back to back to back. It's me super hard.

Like the bike alone will take, will probably take me like 30 hours. The swim will take five hours and the hike will take 30 hours. That's 70 hours, roughly. Jeez. I can't wait. All right, let's take a quick break because I've got to tell you a story. Let me tell me about the first time I tried to run payroll for my team. I was using a traditional bank and, you know,

the type. It's got a janky interface. It's built like a 2002 tax form. And it was open only during business hours. And I hit send and it froze. They flagged the transaction. They locked my account. They put me on hold for 45 minutes. And then they told me I got to visit my local branch. And that was the day I started looking for a new banking solution. After asking a few founders what they were using, I found out about Mercury. And so now my payroll is two clicks. I can wire money. I can pay invoices. I can reimburse the team all from one clean dashboard. That's why I use it for all of my companies. And so do 200,000 other startup founders. And so if you're looking to level up your banking, head to mercury.com and apply in minutes. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank.

Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group, column N-A, and evolve bank and trust members, FDIC. And I'm sure you get a lot of like easy for you to say, you're rich, you're free, you have all the time you want, you have all the money you want, you can do whatever you want. And then people will self-limit because they say, well, that's not me, so I guess I can't. Yeah. And so like, what's say? you. When I was 22 years old, I was sleeping on my friend's couch in New York City. I was bouncing couch to couch to couch and I had a friend that was one of the guys that I was staying with was working and making a ton of money, like quarter million dollars, but, you know, at the time

was, that's all the money. That's all the money. It was making like $800 a year, you know? But at the end of the year, I did the polar plunge in Coney Island. I ran the New York City marathon. I did the Staten Island biathlon. I went to multiple conferences. I went on a two-week trip. I've been doing this since I had zero. I just didn't formalized it.

I didn't even understand it. But what happened is when I got into my 40s and 50s and I was like, God, this guy wrote a book. This guy sold the business. This guy ran an Iron Man. This guy did a marathon. This guy goes in saunas. This guy did blah, blah, blah, blah. What's going on? I'm like, I don't know. I've just been like...

It adds up. I've just been doing all these things and then I realized this is what I've been doing. I just do it on a bigger platform now. So it doesn't mean, like I said, you don't have to climb Mount Everest to have a great year. You have to do things that make you feel good, and they don't just happen. You need a system.

If you wait, your calendar is going to fill up, and other people are going to determine where your energy goes. If you choose where you want to put your energy, like you just did, then you're going to have an amazing year. It's a decision. I really wholeheartedly believe that. It's a system.

So the last thing I want to say real quick is another thing that I do. And again, like I'm just talking about things that have been really helpful for me, trying to just share as much as I can and not everything needs to resonate, right? We just want to inspire people to have a program and a plan that makes them have an efficient year. I'll take you through your year is I call it the eight boxes. Okay. And this is something that has really been helpful for me. I take a piece of paper and I make eight boxes and I pick the categories.

And maybe yours is six. Some might be four. For me, it was eight. I think about what are the buckets that are the most important buckets in my life, that things that I do want to put the energy into. And for me, it's adventure. I love going on adventures, travel, trips. Marriage, obviously is super important.

health and fitness, my children, kids, my business, my personal goals and stuff like this, my family and my personal finance. And we talked about this off-camera. I love the way you meant you talked about it. But what I do is I put down all the things. This is like a running life to-do list, almost, checklist. Now, some of this stuff is for this year.

And I might even put a little dial. But some of it's long term. For example, an adventure, I put everything I want to do in those buckets in here. So this is a snapshot of where I'm going from now to the end of the journey. Some of this stuff will get checked off. For example, I wanted to do a sonnitor of Finland. Always wanted to do it. I did it last year.

Check it off. But now I have a new thing. I want to do this race called the three, this thing called the three hundred. I add it. So it's like a running list. And what I love about this is it's like it's out of my head. and it lives. It doesn't live,

it lives on a piece of paper that I can refer to and it gives me a blueprint for where I'm going. So like, if you don't know what you want to do, if you don't have a vision, if you don't have a dream,

you know, like one of these things is write a book. It doesn't mean I'm going to do it right now, but I have a specific book I want to write. It goes on this sheet. And I refer to this all the time. Now, some of these things

are going on my calendar for 2026. Some of them are going on my calendar for 20. Some of them are just long term, and it's a work in progress. So you basically are collecting throughout the years interesting ideas of what a great life might look like. What are some of the things I want to do before, you know, the clock strikes zero and this whole thing's over? And then in a given year, you might pull one, two things and put it on the calendar. And then you see the momentum and the checklist. And this is the, I think you call it the life resume, right?

Like, you know, you have a work resume. I put some examples of it up here. but yeah, perfect. So like, for example, Sarah just, we were just talking to my wife and she's like, I want to learn the thriller dance. Okay, well, that's going to go in my personal bucket. We're going to learn the thriller dance.

Now, does that mean that has to happen this week? No, but I'm now, it's like, it's exciting. I have, like you were saying, where to get the ideas from? Well, when you get an idea, put it down. Right. You know, bring it to life. Don't let it just marinate.

Like, put it down. So, and man, it feels good. good when I check these off. And every year, I have like, you know, five or six things that I've done and I've added new stuff. Have you ever heard of the idea of a reticular activating system that's part of your brain? No. So there's like this phenomenon. If you ever go car shopping and you start looking, oh, maybe I'm going to buy a BMW. All of a sudden, when you're out on the road, you'll be seeing BMW, BMW, oh, that's the three-season, that's the one he was saying it comes in blue. Yes. Did all those just appear? No, they've been there the whole time.

But your brain, you told your brain, you said, hey, brain's normally filtering out. 99% of things. What's that called? The RAS, the reticular activating system. So once you switch that on, you've basically told your brain, hey, start to pay attention for this. So like, you know, you could do it for BMWs when you're car shopping, but you can do the same thing for life. So, you know, once you realize, oh, I've got like a life bucket list here to fill out,

this sort of menu of things I want to do in my life, it's kind of like turns on the brain to start looking for possibilities. What might be in that? Like, I don't know. You know, you told me about the, you know, the polar plunge or the three hundred Hunter Club, now that I'm looking to fill mine up, I'll start to think to myself, hey, would that be one? Would that be one? Is that the one I want? Is that the one I want? And now it'll become easier for me, I think. Yeah, that's what I was saying about, like, coming up with Misogis and Kevin's rule, it's in your RAS now, you know, like you're thinking about it. I'm also really lucky. I live with, I have a friend group that also is driven and thinks like this. So when we get together, it's like, any good ideas, you guys, it guys heard any races or what do you guys think about this year? Anything cool you think? You think? You think? we should be doing. And, you know, that's how ideas. We, listen, because of that, we rode our bike across the country. The same group did rim to rim to rim, the same group went to Finland. The same group,

you know, this year is doing the 300 Club at the South Pole. The same group, you know, continues to do these things. So that's not easy to find a group of people that would do that. In fact, I didn't even find that until I was in my 50s. I didn't have that in my 20s, 30s and 40s. You found them by doing these? Or you found them? Doing them by putting myself out and saying, hey, I'd love to do that with you, you know, sharing it. Social media's help bring us together.

But of the 10 guys that I've done these adventures with over the last seven years, I only probably knew one of them 10 years ago. That's pretty inspiring because I saw you had that group. I've watched some of your videos. And when you see it and you see how close you guys are to do these adventures, you sort of just assume, I guess these are just as college buddies that like,

I guess I missed it. But you're saying I did it. I'm not even 50, so like, what's my excuse to start, you know, now? Like, it's not too late. Well, you know, in a way you've done it. You've brought together this group through the basketball tournament that you host. And I'm pretty sure you could call Hayes or any of the guys that we've met and say, hey, I got an idea. I want to go take a survival class in Montana in the winter.

Right. You want to do a three-day, everyone's going to put their hand up. It's like you sort of have it. Right. You just have to now take action into like beyond basketball. Right. And that's sort of what I did. That might be one of my things I put on here is like,

build a crew to do these things with. And, you know, those things for you could also be learning experiences. Like for you, you know, maybe it's not like you said. You don't want to go scale a mountain in Antarctica, but you might want to take an intensive you know,

memory course with a guy that never forgets a name. Right. You could take a four-day thing and, because I'm not great. A big one for me is creative project. So I've created like a creative bucket list. It's like, oh man, in my lifetime I want to, I want to make a song that's just a catchy just banger that just, you know, it gets out there in the world. And other people are, you know, bop into this song in a car.

I want to have like a board game that I make. I want, and so I just made a list of things I'd like to make in my life. You just gave, see that? Yeah. Just gave me one of my, I have this, like, creative bucket list. So for me, one of my, probably where you have adventure, for me would be, you know, creative projects that I want to go do in my lifetime. Like, I want to make a movie.

Why not? I have a song that I wrote 15 years ago that I still. think is a hit that I want to put out. I've just been marinating. It's just, yeah. I don't feel pressure to like, you know, for projects. You know, like that process, that creative process, like, it comes in waves, you know, and even if it takes 15 years, it comes in waves.

And the same thing with this book. How do you balance the, like, I want to do so much without, you don't give off, I feel rushed energy? It's like, it was a very rare. for me to find somebody who's got both of those, right? There's some people who just want to stay in place, they're content, they don't feel that rushed. Most people I know were the achiever types that have more ideas than they have time. They have this almost like nervous energy and it's almost like, oh, they're almost not enjoying it because they just always

feel like I should be doing more. I have both genes. I have the like ready fire aim and then I have I've learned that like if you're going to put out a product like a book or a song or something that's going to live out in the world and it's in. in its form that can't be altered. Right. Like we can always improve on our products, but like a book, once it's written, it kind of can't be altered.

You want to, you want, my people probably push back on this, but for me, I found that I want to make the best version that I can make, right? Then I want to wait a second, and then I want to try to make it 10% better. When I think it's done,

like when I did living with the seal, I handed the book in. I read it 600 times. Six, I'm not kidding. 600 times. I read that five-hour book. Maybe not. 600. Let's say I read a 60.

That's a big difference. But let's say I read 60, which I probably did. Cover to cover. Do I like it? Edit it, writing notes or whatever. I finally hand the book in. I have a deadline. We got to get this out.

The public, Amazon needs it, all this. I hand it in. They're like, great. This is the best. We love it. Thank you, blah, blah. I go home.

I read it 61, the 61. The 61st time. I called my publisher the next day and I'm like, I need two more. weeks. She's like, what? I'm like, I can make this 10% better. This is the only book. I want this to be the best, and I handed in the best book that I could write. I could not write a better. That was it. That was the absolute best version of that book that I could write. And know what that meant? No matter

what happened, I felt good about it. If it got one star reviews and sold 18 copies, I don't care. You're at peace. That's the best. book I could write. But if I wrote a half-ass version of that book, I would have beaten myself up forever. So that's how I feel about those kind of one-way door projects. Yeah. That's awesome. Jesse, thank you so much for doing this. Oh, thank you. I loved it. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On a road, let's travel, never looking back. All right, everyone, if you're listening to MFM, you probably want to make more money. Well, I want to tell you about a

podcast you might want to check out. It's called The Sales Evangelist and it's hosted by Donald Kelly. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts who share their strategies to succeed in sales. They share actionable insights and stories that will encourage, challenge, and motivate you to hustle your way to the top. If you're someone looking to raise your income level, check out the Sales Evangelist, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.