Jesse Itzler: Play Life On OFFENSE | How to Build an Epic Life Resume

Jesse Itzler is back on the show, and this conversation goes deeper than business. From founding Marquis Jet (sold to Berkshire Hathaway's NetJets) to co-founding ZICO Coconut Water (sold to Coca-Cola), Jesse's entrepreneurial resume speaks for itself — but what he really wants to talk about is your life resume. In this episode, Jesse and Ed unpack the mindset shifts that separate people who exist from people who live. Jesse shares the concept of "last visit energy" — a practice born from visiting his aging parents that completely changed how he shows up for the people he loves. They discuss why most people play life on defense, letting other people fill their calendars, and how Jesse flips the script by aggressively planning his life years in advance. You'll learn about the Japanese tradition of Misogi — picking one big, year-defining challenge every single year — and why Jesse believes if you can't find one day every eight weeks for yourself, your work-life balance is broken. They dig into friend reduction, the power of "yes, and" people, why grit is the biggest indicator of future success, and the sobering truth that 80 is still 80. This one will make you think differently about time, presence, and what you're putting on your calendar. 🔥 Here's What You'll Gain From This Episode • The "Life Resume" framework — why your work resume fills itself in, but your life resume takes intention, and how to start building one that actually matters • "Last visit energy" — a mindset shift that will change how you show up for the people you love, starting today • The Misogi method — how to pick one big, year-defining challenge every year so you can look back and actually remember your life • Playing life on offense — Jesse's system for aggressively planning your calendar before other people fill it for you • The mini-adventure strategy — one day every eight weeks that could give you 300 unforgettable experiences over a lifetime • Friend reduction — how to curate your circle around "yes, and" people who energize you instead of draining you • Grit as a one-way ratchet — why pushing through suffering permanently raises your baseline, and how to apply it to parenting, business, and life • "80 is still 80" — the sobering reminder that postponing things is often just quietly canceling them • Lessons from an empty nester — the regrets parents share most, and how to avoid waiting until it's too late to be present with your kids Approval in minutes, small business funding same day for up to $500k. Apply Now https://cardiff.co/ED For a better way to stay hydrated, go to instanthydration.com/MYLETT and use my promo code MYLETT for over 40% off your first subscription order - it’s Instant Hydration’s best offer available Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 AM to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 PM. And my third day, 6:00 PM to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years. And my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender and for good reason.

• 0:45Speaker 00

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• 1:28Speaker 00

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• 2:08Speaker 00

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• 2:24Speaker 01

  This is the Ed and Mylan Show.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the show, everybody. Today is one of my favorite people and one of my favorite guests we've ever had on the show. Just easily. And most of you know who he is. He's had an incredibly successful business career. And that's probably what a lot of people think of when they hear his name. He founded Marquis Jet. He sold that to Berkshire Hathaway's and that Jets. Then he did Zico coconut water, sold that to Coca-Cola. He's kind of a legend in the hip hop game. He's built and sold a bunch of businesses. He's a tremendous communicator, one of my favorite speakers in the world on stage as well. And to be honest with you, really none of that is what I think of when his name comes up. I think of like one of my favorite people, a dude who's living a good life. And just a good man, very smart man, but a very good man.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  He also married well.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  He married Sarah Blakely. She's done okay in business herself and she's a wonderful woman. When I say okay, she's cashed out for over a billion. But what I think of with him is his family and the kind of friend he is. And it is crazy to me that it's been this long since he's been back on the show. And I'm really grateful that he is. Jesse Itzler, bro, welcome back on the program. It's great to have you.

• 3:37Jesse Itzler?

  Great to be here. Last time we did this, we were at your house in Laguna. I turned it into a vacation.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Did you really?

• 3:44Jesse Itzler?

  I was hoping you'd invite me back to Laguna or Hope Island to do this. I could turn it into a vacation.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  You are invited to Hope Island where I'm sitting right now. It's just we're both so busy. I want to, I want to say something to you. I mean what I just said when I introduced you. Like our first conversation, we first met and we've been around each other several times since. It's one of the shows that I left and I was actually different after. I truly was different after. In fact, I want to play you something that you said to me on the show and then get your current feedback on it. Okay, so I'm just going to show you this.

• 4:14Jesse Itzler?

  You know, my parents are getting older. All these things are happening around me. You've heard me mention this before, like my parents live in Florida.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:21Jesse Itzler?

  Anyone that has parents that are elderly, you know, if you see them a couple of times a year and they're going to live another five years, you don't have five years with them. You have five times the two visits you see a year. You have 10 visits with them. Once you start to look at time that way, those visits become insanely valuable. So like when I'm with my mom and dad, oh my God, like the TVs are off. You know, I am where my feet are and I'm focused on it. And you know, when I'm with you, I'm with you. Like this is, this is a great moment. I want to be here, here. And it's very difficult to be where your feet are. But that's something that I really try to do. I try to be super present.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  For you and I, it makes me emotional even playing that clip because it really, it impacted me. And I changed the way that I interacted with my dad because of you, bro. And my dad's since passed away since that. And I know you've lost your mom and your dad since that time. So thank you for what you said to me there because it made a difference in my family. But I wonder for you, why am I so emotional? I wonder for you, when you see that clip now and having lost both of your parents, what are your reflections or thoughts about it?

• 5:36Jesse Itzler?

  My math was wrong. I didn't have 10 years. I, you know, I had a lot less. I didn't, when we did the interview, I didn't know that. My math was wrong. You don't know when or what's going to happen or what's going to change. You know, time doesn't tell you what's going to happen. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is they assume that what they can do today, they can do in 10 years from now. And it doesn't work like that. Yeah, I lost both my parents and my sister since our podcast. And you know, every time I used to go to my parents' house as they got older, I would always wonder if it was like the last time I would see my parents.

• 6:18Jesse Itzler?

  So I would walk in there and like, I would literally take a snapshot of me saying goodbye to them and being like, is this the last? Because they were getting older, you know? My dad had Alzheimer's. My mom was getting older. And like, you know, just starting to go a little bit downhill. And when you go downhill, it can go real, it can, it can go downhill fast. And so I would take like, so I, and that happened for like years. I would go there and I'd be like, is this the last time? Is this the last time? Is this going to be the last time? And as I started showing up, I started operating with like, this is the last, this is like with the energy of this is the last visit. I would, I almost literally called it like last visit energy. So I would be like way more like put my phone down. And I would be like, I feel like those last years were really good for me because of how I showed up when I went to visit my parents.

• 7:03Jesse Itzler?

  They lived in Florida. I was living in Atlanta.

• 7:07Jesse Itzler?

  And I'm, and I started to like incorporate that into almost everything I do. Like even with my children now is like that last minute. And if you can bottle that feeling of like, man, this might be the last this or this, not like in a negative sad way, but in a way that like I'm going to channel it into being like the best person in this moment. That's been a really good thing for me. So it's been a challenging five years, but I've learned a lot of lessons in those five years.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  I want to talk about what some of them are. Exactly the same thing happened to me after our conversation. I would say, bro, I don't like to, because when you pick one thing, it minimizes the amazing impact other people have made on my show out of 900 some odd interviews. But for me, that is probably the most impactful moment on the show. Because I started to do exactly what you just said. And I want everyone just to listen in. You're, everybody knows you and I, they're listening. We're obviously been both blessed financially, both blessed with amazing families. But these are the things that matter are, are the people in your life, you know? And I started doing that exact same thing, Jesse, where when I would see my dad, what if this was the last visit? Literally put my phone in the car, be fully present.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  I would even take in his facial features and look at him. You same thing? Yeah. And I'd look at him longer. And I do do that in other areas of my life now. When I give a speech or when my children are around, what if this was the last one? And so thank you for that. I, what, what, of one of those lessons, and by the way, time matters. And it's one of the things Jesse's here to talk about today is his big ass calendar, which we're going to get to. These all weave together. But if there was like one thing you would say the last five years or so as you've gone through all of that, you said all these lessons, what would be one that might surprise me that stood out for you?

• 8:52Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I'll give you like a just a very direct lesson from that is like, you know, if the people that showed up, I remember when my dad passed away, you called me, this was insane. And you said to me, if you have any speeches you want me to do for you while you're like grieving and going through this, I'll do them like no fee. I was like, what? I don't even know you that well. Like you're gonna, you wanna, that was like the most insane call. And I feel like if people listening, like if you have somebody in your life that's grieving and you don't reach out to them, they're never going to forget that. So you kind of take inventory during those times of like who you, who showed up for you and who didn't. And sometimes you get surprises like you did to me. I have an incredible ask, I'll never forget it. And I don't even speak to you that much. That was really cool, man. I really appreciate that.

• 9:37Jesse Itzler?

  I think that, you know, every decade of my life is so different. You know, like when I look, and I bet it's similar to most people's, but like when I look back on my journey in my twenties, I was really, it's a time to like find your way. I was figuring out what I'm good at, what I'm not good at, you know? I wasn't making a lot of money, but I had a ton of freedom during my twenties and just kind of learning and figuring out. In my thirties, I was building. I had a business, I started to grow a family, you know? My career became important as I was building it, but time started to get a little bit more tight in my thirties as I was doing all in that. In my forties, I had my peak responsibility. I had a mortgage, I had a kid, I had a business, you know, my, and, and time, everything was competing for my time in my forties.

• 10:21Jesse Itzler?

  In my fifties, where I am now, my kids started to get older, my parents were older, I got older, like I started to think about time a lot differently. And as I go into my sixties now, which is where I'm 58 years old, I have more money and I have more freedom, but I'm not necessarily as capable of doing things that I was in my twenties and thirties. It's just like, and like thinking about where you, where you are and where you're going into those, like I was thinking about my parents a lot as, as they got older. Those different chapters of my life have been so damn different, man. Like I'm so different now than I was in my twenties.

• 11:05Jesse Itzler?

  And it's just, it's just, it's just wild, you know?

• 11:10Speaker 00

  What's Masogi, Misoji? What is that? I've heard you talk about it on social media. What does that mean? It fits into this somehow, I know.

• 11:17Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, like, I, I mean, I'm a big planner and I'm aggressively thinking about not just, not just this year, but like where I'm going to be, where my kids are going to be in five years. You're an empty nester, you know, you gotta start thinking about all that stuff. But a Masogi is an old Japanese ritual and the notion around it is you do one big year defining thing every year. Like you should plan and have something on your calendar that at the end of 365 days in 2026, you have something to show for it. And a lot of people, it sounds so obvious, but a lot of people don't. If I asked you what you did 10 years ago, if I asked you what you do in 2015, 2019, eight days ago, most people couldn't tell me, you know? And I can do that.

• 11:58Jesse Itzler?

  I can look back and say like in, you know, 2015, I wrote Living with a Seal and 2023, I rode my bike across America. I took a trip to Finland with my 10 friends, like I have, I've been really good about putting one big year defining thing on my calendar every year. And it matters if you're 30 and you live to be 80 and you do one big thing every year, like, you know, like intentionally, like, man, I'm gonna launch a podcast, I'm gonna write a book, I'm gonna run a marathon, I'm gonna stop smoking, whatever, you know? And you live 50, it's 50 year defining things on kind of like your life resume. You know, we have our work resume and that always fills in. We spend so much effort and energy on our work resume, but like, do we really spend

• 12:42Jesse Itzler?

  a lot of time planning like the other side of it, our life resume? So having that one big like rock in the ground, flag in the ground every year has been a really good north star for me.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  What would you say to somebody who says, I didn't mean to interrupt you, sorry for that, go ahead?

• 12:56Jesse Itzler?

  Nah, good.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Well, I think sometimes people would look at you or I maybe if they're listening to go, that's cool, two rich guys, you can do whatever the heck you want. Like I'll, I'll get around to it, but right now, bro, I'm trying to like, I gotta get my truck in the shop and I gotta get my kids a soccer practice and we're just trying to pay bills here. I just, you, you know that that is something, some, people forget you and I were also at that stage of our life at one point. But what would you say to somebody who says, look, I'm just scraping daily to put my head on a pillow, put food on the table, I'll get around to it. What would you say to them? That's a hard one.

• 13:35Jesse Itzler?

  It, it, it is, and everybody, you know, is dealing with stuff like that, but I still think there's 365 days a year.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 13:43Jesse Itzler?

  If you can't find one day, one day every other month, one day or one day a year or, or something, what do you, like, what are you really doing at the end of the day? You know, and I think it's, even though it's challenging, it's so important. I actually think by putting something big like that on your calendar or real, let's say you're gonna run a marathon, it forces you to say no to the things that aren't as important in your life. I think it actually frees up time because you have to get really better with your system and really more diligent and we only have a limited amount of energy, you know? Where do you want to put that energy? You know, do you want to put it towards, I'm on friend reduction right now, Ed.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  So am I.

• 14:24Jesse Itzler?

  I'm on friend reduction because like I have, you know, a lot of people in my life that were taking energy away from me. I want to be around people that give me energy, you know? And I want to do things that give me energy and make me feel alive. So it, to the people that are, that have that, you know, where they have to take their shop, go to the shop and they're working like, I totally get that. I lived that for over a decade of my life, but I still went to the polar plunge that was free in Coney Island every New Year's. I still signed up for a marathon, I still found time and it made me better, man. It made, it made me better. It made me say no to things that were taking away energy. And the other thing I was gonna say is like, you know, a lot of time people postpone things.

• 15:08Jesse Itzler?

  Like I'm gonna postpone that trip for a year, I'm gonna postpone it, whatever. But really, very often they're canceling something without even realizing it because they never do it. So like the whole thing of like, I'm just gonna postpone it and push it down the road. A lot of times that equals you just canceled it. It never happened. So I'm a big believer that it's really important. I think it makes you better at work, better at home, better father, mother, son, daughter, whatever, when you prioritize yourself a little bit, because the more you experience, the more you have to offer, the more interesting you are. Maybe you'll get a bigger promotion, maybe you'll be more interesting at the lunchroom at work because you signed up for that race or did that one thing.

• 15:51Jesse Itzler?

  I think it's, I actually think it's critical that you find a way to do it.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  I do too, and I think you're a hundred percent right. I think delays are usually cancellations. Did you know that over 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated and 90% don't even don't get enough potassium? A key electrolyte responsible for energy, muscle function and clear thinking. That's why so many people feel tired, foggy, crampy, or even off or late day, kind of just fatigue, even when they drink tons of water. Instant Hydration is a premium electrolyte drink designed to support hydration, energy, recovery and focus without sugar or unnecessary additives. Instant Hydration is known for their refreshing flavors, not overly salty, smooth taste and an easy daily habit. I love the icy and watermelon flavors, watermelon's the best. They are the most refreshing packets that taste great.

• 16:39Speaker 00

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• 17:24Speaker 00

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• 18:06Speaker 00

  But before we go there, you just said something I want to kind of unpack a little bit because I have two.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  My friend circle is so much considerably smaller than it was 15 years ago.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  To the point where even yesterday I was, I, I was actually reflecting if, if it, if I were sad about that, literally yesterday in this room, I was sitting here alone thinking, my gosh, like there's just not as many people that I call as I used to. And remember when my dad, when my dad was in his late sixties, I remember looking at my dad and thinking, this is when I'm in my thirties or whatever, remember thinking almost with sadness, like what a small life he's got. Doesn't have that many friends, you know? I even said to him once, I said, dad, like, he goes, you're my best friend. Like how cool is it that my son's my best friend? But I remember thinking, yeah, I got a big life, man. I got this guy and that person and this and that.

• 18:57Speaker 00

  And almost like, not looking down, but almost with some smallness towards my father, right? And he said to me, Eddie, he goes, just so you know, as you get older, that, that circle's gonna shrink and you're gonna want to spend time with only the people who bring you love, bring you energy, stretch you, push you, make you think. You're gonna be surprised. That's exactly what's happened. He was right. Why do you think yours has shrunk? And what advice would you give to somebody who maybe feels alone that their circle's not very big? Or maybe they got a lot of people around them that are draining them?

• 19:30Jesse Itzler?

  I think everyone is wired differently. I think from just, I can only really speak from my own experiences. You know, like my life's different than it was 20, 10, 20 years ago. I have four kids. I used to, when I was in my twenties, thirties and I had marquee jet, my first real success, you know, business wise, I was working a lot, 21 hours a day, you know, eating dinner at 11 o'clock at night. Now, like, literally my wife this morning said to me, she wants to eat at 4:30 in the afternoon. I'm like, that's breakfast. That's breakfast for me. I can't have dinner at 4:30. Um, your, your system evolves. And some of my, some people in, in, you know, that I've known for a long time, like they're still going to the bars. They're still going to the clubs. They're still doing that kind of stuff. And, you know, like,

• 20:14Jesse Itzler?

  nothing against that or them in any way, but like, I am like in carpool line, man. Like my life is way different. So as you evolve, your system of living has to evolve. Otherwise, like, you know, so, um, I've just gotten a little bit different, you know, than like, we've just kind of drifted away and that's totally fine.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  And you don't think either one's wrong, like stage of life, there, there's a stage of life where you're supposed to be eating at 11 o'clock at night. You think for some people.

• 20:44Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. And as I've gotten older, I want, I want low aggravation. It's like in my twenties, I would take really high aggravation for, for any kind of reward. Like I was willing to work and it could be, you know, going a hundred no's knocking on doors. I sold chicken, shrimp and meat door to door. I was willing to take a hundred no's for the one person that would buy shrimp for me, you know? Um, I was willing to, to do all that. Now I want as low aggravation as I can for any, even a little bit of reward. Like it doesn't matter. And it's the same with people. Like I, I don't want aggravation, you know? Um, so I still have a ton of friends. I have amazing friends, but I want friends that energize me. I don't want friends

• 21:29Jesse Itzler?

  that are always super heavy and, you know, questioning what I'm doing, you know, like, why are you doing that? Why do you want that? There's an old rule in comedy, in improv comedy, that when you do improv and you pass the story, like, you know, it's like a story and there's a group of people and they don't even know. It just goes around. Um, you always want to start off when you get it from the next person by saying, yes. And then, yes, and because it keeps the momentum going. I want to be a yes, end person. Oh, you want to buy a, a, you want to buy your own island? There's people would be like, Ed, that's [BLEEP] nuts. Like what? You want to isolate yourself in Maine and take a ferry? And then there's people that are like, yes.

• 22:08Jesse Itzler?

  And that is so amazing, Ed, that you're willing to go against the norm, miles away and build something that you love. I want to be that person and I want people that are yes, end people in my life.

• 22:20Speaker 00

  So good, Jesse. You know, I think one common trait, like if there was a three line of what you'd call like successful people, whatever the heck that means, that could be someone who's building wealth. That could be the best school teacher you meet, right?

• 22:37Speaker 00

  You or I, all the way through life to where it changes, where it's not about money or business or et cetera. It's about experiences. One through line of alive people is what I would call them, is their focus on time and its priority. Like as an entrepreneur, when you and I were young, every hour meant call this prospect. You're thinking buying the donuts at Starbucks, that story, the scones and all of that, like time matters. And I'm well known on the internet for a famous clip of that I can manipulate time. Or that cavemen lived 300 years ago. So clearly I focus on time. This calendar and planner, you got to unpack this a little bit.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  It really to me comes down to evaluating and prioritizing time, whether you're at that go stage of 21 hours a day, or you're at that stage now of kids, carpool lane, experiences, climbing a mountain, et cetera. Just unpack that whole time thing.

• 23:37Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I think that if you want to have like an extraordinary life, you, you don't just stumble into it. You have to kind of plan it and you have to think about it and, and almost direct it in a way, you know, like, yeah, I mean, like, and I think that, um, most people play life on defense. They let their calendars fill up with other people's requests for time. So like Zoom calls, meetings, weddings, appointments. You know, we plan our dentist appointment six months down the road. We, you know, we have all this stuff planned, but like, I, at the end of the day, that like, we don't have enough time. That's taking all the time away from what we might want to do. I flip that upside down and I literally play life on offense.

• 24:20Jesse Itzler?

  I'm an aggressive planner. I put down all the things that I want to do on my calendar first. Even like 2027, we're talking right now. I don't know when this airs, but we're in October. I've already built out half my 2027. The races I'm running, the trips I'm going, I'm taking my kids on a long ski trip. My family trips to Europe, like, um, you know, the concerts I want to go to, the final four trip I'm taking. All of that's on my calendar first. Now I know work's going to fill in around it. It always does. But now I have a great, like I have the most epic 2027 already and all I had to do is follow my script. I don't think anyone's good enough to just wake up and wing it.

• 24:59Jesse Itzler?

  Like, you know, like, because the, like the clock moves and like so many things are filling up. We're getting bombarded with requests for time. So I think that like taking control of that is, is really, really important. Like you would never, you would never start a business without a budget. You would never build a house without a blueprint, you know? I don't think, it's the same way I look at my year. Like I want to build it out and have a plan. So I'm an aggressive planner. Um, that does, and that doesn't mean I'm not spontaneous. I think it makes me more spontaneous. Cause it actually frees up. So that's the way I sort of think about it. Um, my wife and I spend a lot, every week, we, every two weeks we get together and we map out what nights we're having family dinner.

• 25:41Jesse Itzler?

  Like, and we spend like an hour on it. Like, well, what time? Who's going to be here? Can we move this? Can we do that? Because otherwise it's, it's just really hard. We have four kids and I'm an entrepreneur. My wife's an entrepreneur. So I'm a really aggressive planner. I, I, um, yeah, I think it's really.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  You live your life and you live your, you seem to me to live your life with more intention than most. And I think that's what this is. Now, first off, cause I want you to promote something. How could you help them with this? You have this big ass planner and calendar. Sell it. Tell them.

• 26:14Jesse Itzler?

  I do. I have, I have a, um, I, I just take, this is a big ass planner, something I created. I, I take it with me everywhere. I also have a calendar that's the big ass calendar. It's a 365, every single day of the year on one piece of paper. And I sell it. I created it because I'm visual. I want to see where I'm, where I spend my time. I want to track towards my goals and I can't do that scrolling. My phone's great for appointments, reminders, that kind of stuff. But the big picture, seeing exactly like how I, mine's actually on my wall.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure. Yeah, there it is.

• 26:52Jesse Itzler?

  And I color coordinate things and it's super duper helpful. So I, I've been doing that for a while. People's like, how do you plan? I'm like, this is how I plan and I launched this calendar and it's changed a lot of people's lives. The misogi that you talked about.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:08Jesse Itzler?

  Um, is part of the calendar because, um, having a calendar is one thing, but how you use it and fill it out is another. I think a calendar or a planner, I like this planner because I travel with it. It goes in my bag and, um, is the best, most honest autobiography of your life. Like it shows you exactly what you did and what you didn't do. So I, I, I do, like I spend a lot of time mapping it out. And I teach people like, you know, you mentioned the misogi. That's one of the things I do in my planning system. I have a very simple way that I plan. I mean, it's, I'll show you with you right now, but basically I put that one big thing in every year. And I, that's a critical component of my life. Like I want to have something big to show for every year. Like

• 27:54Jesse Itzler?

  you, you, you have to have that. And then every other month, I just take a little mini adventure. I can't take one day every eight, every eight weeks. So every other, every other month, I take one, if you can't take one day out of eight weeks to do something for yourself, you gotta really look at your work, life balance. Like it's, it's probably a little out of whack. But if I do a little mini adventure every other month, and that could just be like, I'm taking my kids fishing instead of watching the Georgia football game. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go watch you speak. I'm gonna go take a clap, whatever. If I take one little mini adventure every other month, that's six a year. So now I'm 30 years old. I watched the Ed Mylett show and like, I saw this guy Jesse, man, he's older. I don't even know

• 28:37Jesse Itzler?

  what he was talking about, but he told me to do like one big thing a year and take six little mini adventures. I did everything I did last year, the same, but I did that. And I did it for 30, for, from 30 to 80, for 50 years. Now you have 50 year defining things and 300 mini adventures you wouldn't have had. That's like incredible. And it's not really that hard. I mean, I know everybody's busy, but you can take one day every eight weeks. By the way, you need to, otherwise you're going to burn out. And I've been doing that since I'm, I didn't even realize I was doing that even in my twenties, when I was really grinding. I mean, I slept on 18 different friends' couches from 18 to 22.

• 29:19Jesse Itzler?

  Like I wasn't homeless. I wasn't, but I was bouncing around, figuring out how to make it as an entrepreneur and all these businesses that failed. I had a, a management company that failed, the record label that failed. I sold carrot and shrimp, you know, uh, chicken, shrimp and meat door to door, carrot and celery sticks, door to door failed. I mean, apparel company failed miserably, miserably. But even during those times on my friends' couches, you know, like,

• 29:48Jesse Itzler?

  My friends are working on Wall Street, split screen, making a quarter million dollars a year, having time shares in the Hamptons. I'm sleeping on their couch. I'm making zero, maybe like zero, scrapping together, maybe fifteen, twenty thousand dollars a year, but spending thirty-five, you know, like, like way out of whack. But I'm still running the marathons. I'm going to the lake, to the plunges. And all of a sudden, at the end of the year, I'm looking back and I'm like, holy [BLEEP] man, these guys are so stressed out. They have no free time. I had an epic year with nothing. So I've always had that mindset of like, I want epic years. Even if I have, I'm scrapping through it. I want to take advantage.

• 30:29Jesse Itzler?

  I mean, this country affords us amazing lakes, mountains, races. Now you have stuff you can learn on, on AI, social media, your show. There's, you know, Gandhi said it best. Live, um, learn like you'll live forever, live like you'll die tomorrow. And that's sort of how I've been doing it. Like, I'm living like, I said, like, I don't know if I have ten years. I don't know, but I don't want to waste this. So I'm an aggressive planner. I do one big thing a year and I take a minimum and I take, I make sure I schedule, you know, five or six little mini adventures, um, every year. And it's worked really well for me, you know? It's made me happier. Um, it, it gives me, I'm reward driven.

• 31:14Jesse Itzler?

  Most of us are reward driven. So if I have something on my calendar or my planner that I can look forward to, it makes it a lot easier to go to work, to get my truck, you know, serviced or whatever. Cause I know in four more weeks, man, I am going to Puerto Rico for two days. Like, that helps me.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  That is profound, what you just said. I find the exact same thing, brother. If there's something cool on my calendar, it makes whatever grind difficulty I'm going through much more tolerable. I mean, I, I think what he just said there, you guys, is such a profound thing. Those of you that are like, no, I'm in that grind mode. Yeah. And if it's six weeks from now, you're going to Puerto Rico for two days. It just makes it, you're almost sprinting towards the finish line almost. Like Jesse, I gotta tell you, like, listening to you right now, there's a part of me that I've known you do this. I've heard it from the periphery and I haven't done it very well. And not only you guys, if you don't schedule these things, are they cancellations?

• 32:13Speaker 00

  But quite frankly, those of you that are busy, I have lots of cool things that I could do in my life that I can't do because I've scheduled things on those days when they come up because I'm not intentional in advance. All kinds of things come up in my life that I'd love to go do. Hey, go play August and Ashley. I can't, I've scheduled a speech that day or I've done this. A lot of things I missed because I'm not in control of my schedule. And so a lot of you are missing things. There's another through line with you that I want to have you express, if you don't mind. I'm really, I really think this is so good. You, uh, it seems to me from all the way back, from the Marquis Jet stuff that I do know about, those stories, you have this, you've built a muscle

• 32:57Speaker 00

  through these experiences, like going to Finland with the guys or the building Marquis Jet or whatever it is. You've built a muscle where you will chase things you're unprepared for. And in other words, preparation's a really big deal, but you are constantly putting yourself in situations you may not be prepared for. Like these races you do, these experiences you go do, these businesses, these boardrooms you had to walk in. The through line, whether it was business or fun stuff or life or all of it together, you throw yourself into a place that most people would say, maybe you're not ready for. Is that true?

• 33:33Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my dad owned the plumbing supply house. We never talked, I never took a business class growing up. We never talked about money or business. Um, I had to rely on, on intuition and, and like entrepreneurs, like the first thing I ask myself as an entrepreneur is what makes me or my product uniquely different? And sometimes not having that experience is what makes you different because it makes you, it guarantees you're going to do things differently than everybody else. Most, most people follow the same script that like, you know, if you're in financial services, that everyone's been using in financial services for the last 50 years. Innovation and disruption comes when you rip up that playbook and you do things differently.

• 34:14Jesse Itzler?

  And for me, I never, when I approached things, cause like, when we started, I started a private jet company. I didn't know anything about airplanes. I had no aviation experience. I'm, we had no, my partner and I had no money when we started it. Um, we had no access to airplanes, like, you know, like, how would you, how would you possibly think about? And, and I was 28 years old. I was a kiddie pool attendant six years before that. I went from a kiddie pool attendant to a guy that had a company that did over five billion in sales in like a six-year window.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  What? That's nuts.

• 34:48Jesse Itzler?

  It is crazy, man. But like, when we started the journey for Marquis Jet, if they would have said to me, you have no experience, man. What are you doing? You know, like, and, and to do this, you're going to need FAA approval and Department of Transportation approval. And you have to build a sales team and raise money. I would have been like, what, but with like, what was the first thing you said I needed? Department of Transportation approval? Ed, there's gotta be a lawyer in New York that specializes in that. Let's get that guy and okay, we got, we can go through the, we got Department of Transit. What's the second, I need FAA approval? There's gotta be someone that specializes in that. You, you have to break things down into digestible bites.

• 35:27Jesse Itzler?

  And if you think about the whole, you know, landscape of it, it's overwhelming. So I never really think about like, how am I going to do it? Cause they would, I would stop me in my tracks. It's like, what's the first thing I need to do? And getting started is a strategy. Speed's a strategy. You know, so I, I always kind of like start the process as soon as I can and then start to chip away at it and fi, and figure it out. And it doesn't always work. I've had a lot of egg on my face too.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:55Jesse Itzler?

  But the fear of like not knowing what the [BLEEP] I'm doing, you know, is kind of exciting to me. Cause like, no one else does either. And if it's easy, you know, like the harder it is, I love it because it weeds out the competition. Like I heard a stat that there's like two, this could, I might be a little off here, but there's like, I don't know if it's a year, but it's like, there's two million podcasts or something that have been launched in, I don't even know, a year or the last couple of years, two million. And of the two million, 25% have, 500,000 of them quit or stopped after one episode. If 25% of the population is going to quit because they didn't find advertisers or it was too hard

• 36:38Jesse Itzler?

  or they couldn't build it, after one episode, I like my chances. I like my, cause I'm definitely going past that. Now, now there's 75% left. And the stats start to go down, you know, after episode two, three, four. I'm 100 episodes before I even think about quitting.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:55Jesse Itzler?

  I'm a hu, give me a hundred [BLEEP] episodes before the word quit even starts to enter my head. I'm gonna, I'm gonna like go out and hold a sign. I have a podcast, I'm gonna knock on people's doors, I'm putting flyers. I'm exhausting every resource before I stop. And that's been my journey, man, since, you know, from the beginning. And sometimes it works and it really pays off. And, and sometimes it doesn't, but it doesn't work because I didn't, I didn't do a hundred episodes. Cause I only did one episode, you know?

• 37:24Speaker 00

  And you're willing to throw yourself in the deep end of the pool, even though you may not know how to swim yet. And it's, it's, by the way, it's the most alive. It's what he does on these races, is what he does on these experiences, is what he did in business. There's a through line there.

• 37:39Speaker 03

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• 38:04Speaker 00

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• 38:49Speaker 00

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• 39:05Speaker 00

  The other thing that perplexes me about you, that's really interesting, cause you're like, you, you're, when I think of like, people have been on the show, I'm like, rank the happiest ones. Like happiest. You'd be on that list somewhere, at least from a distance on the peripheral knowing you. You know what I mean? A, you just said, I was gonna ask you, is that true? You just said yes. Yet. You put yourself in situations still where you suffer. Where you don't need to. One of the best watches is on all of social media is when you're doing these insane races you're doing. And your team's filming you and I'm watching you barely be able to move. There's a few of them I've watched. I'm like, yeah, he's gonna quit on this one. Like this is the one he's gonna. You know, like this is the one.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  In fact, I think it was the last one I was watching. I was like, bro, like, please stop. But you don't. What is it about, I don't know if the suffering is the right word. How do you look at that? Like you. You have an abundance of resources, to put it mildly. Right? You, you, if people watch this, they could go, oh, so what he's basically saying is take vacation every six weeks. That's his key to life. No, no, no, no. You got the wrong guy here. He's constantly doing these hundred mile ultra marathon up the hill, down the hill. Can't stop running for a day straight, just insane. Why do you do that?

• 40:24Jesse Itzler?

  So a couple of things. First of all, I'm definitely not saying just taking vacation every, I'm saying there's two sides of this. There's the business side and we over index in how much we put into the business side.

• 40:35Speaker 00

  No question.

• 40:35Jesse Itzler?

  You know, and then there's like the spiritual side of the business journey. Like. Were you philanthropic? Were you kind to your customers? Did you have adventure? While you were doing your business in your life, like, and those two things. Have to coexist. In a way that is, you know, makes you feel great, in my opinion, like. It, it's really important how those two sides coexist. And taking a little time for yourself, six days out of three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Feels doable. And it's gonna have a tremendous impact on this side. That's what I'm saying. It's also gonna help you build relationships, learn about yourself and build grit if you do things that are hard.

• 41:16Jesse Itzler?

  Back to the happy part, I'm gonna break this, that, your whole question down into a couple of parts. I am super happy and part of that. You know, um, I, I don't even know, man. I've been, I've been always enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is a superpower. It's infectious and contagious and I think it, it's really important and, and I've been really enthusiastic my, my whole life, but. I'm not a glass half full. You know, you're always, are you a glass half full? Are you a glass half empty? I am so happy I have a glass. Like, I can't believe I even have a glass. That's like my approach to it. And some people have a, oh, they, they walk around like their glass is cracked. I have a frigging glass. And there's an old saying, if you have health, you have hope.

• 42:01Jesse Itzler?

  And if you have hope, you have everything. And I feel like I, I'm, I always, I'm always hopeful. I'm always enthusiastic and I'm glad that I have a glass. So I think that's really important, but. You know, and I, and I care a lot. I care a lot about my friends, my people in my life. My products, my customers. And that's a superpower and that, and, and the best way I show that is through enthusiasm. So enthusiasm is really important to me.

• 42:32Jesse Itzler?

  As, as far as.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  Suffering.

• 42:34Jesse Itzler?

  Suffering.

• 42:37Jesse Itzler?

  Suffering is like learning, you know, I learn a lot about myself through, through these experiences. You don't really learn just coasting through life like this. And by the way, I want ups and downs and. I want a life that's like, I want the scars. I want, I want it all. I want it all. And you get that by putting yourself in situations that are challenging. You learn a lot about yourself and. The grit that, that comes from, you know, like I'm an endurance athlete. I've never won anything in my life. I'm back of the pack, everything. I'm back of the pack sales, back of the pack running, back of the, I don't care about any of that. What I care about is like getting grittier.

• 43:18Jesse Itzler?

  You know, getting, being able to o- o- overcome disappointment and obstacles and challenges. Cause that's what everybody here is gonna face on their journey as an entrepreneur, as their journey as a parent, as a journey a- as. A husband or wife or partner, you know, it's like, there's a lot of challenges that come and how you deal with that. So let me just give you like a, a, an example, a couple of examples of this. So like, you know, I've done hundred mile runs. And, um, they're hard. And they're long and you know, you get. You get to a point where you wanna quit. Let's say mile sixty, you're like, God, I have forty more miles. I have blisters and. I'm freezing and all this stuff.

• 44:03Jesse Itzler?

  And most people do, cause it's easy to quit. But if you can keep going. Usually there's a window where you start to feel better. Things change. You put yourself in a situation where you. You start to think positive. There's a light at the end of the tunnel as you get closer, like, and you can push, you can push through it. And I think that's the difference for many people. They think they're gonna stay in this period of suffering, using a race as an example forever. But things do get better and usually. And when you go through races like this and you go through this and then you come home and you have a, a, a toddler. And the toddler's crying. They're having a tantrum. I'm so well equipped to deal with a tantrum.

• 44:45Jesse Itzler?

  You're like, I just, I'm like, you think you're gonna cry for twenty minutes? It's not gonna faze me, buddy. I'm gonna stay here totally calm until you get out of this. Like. It gives you these skills you don't even know you had because you've been through that. So I think it's important to like. Give yourself some challenges, some disappointments, some push through it. Grit, like we're all born with a level of grit, I believe. Like maybe you're an eight, eh, maybe I'm a six, I don't know. But when you do things that are really challenging, take that grit level up, it never goes back down. You don't like, you don't, it doesn't, and, and, um. They say grit's the biggest indicator of future success. So like if we all raise grittier kids.

• 45:30Jesse Itzler?

  There's a much better chance they'd be successful. So, you know, um. Putting a little thing, some things like that on your calendar, I think can go a really long way. Now I don't put my kids and say, hey, you gotta do this, but they see me doing it. I'm a show, don't tell person.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  Caught, not caught.

• 45:46Jesse Itzler?

  Don't, don't tell them.

• 45:47Speaker 00

  Yep, they're catching a ton.

• 45:49Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, they catch it. They know like we run, I'm running, I don't look at the weather. I'm running no matter what. Like, it doesn't, what do I prepare if it's, I'm going anyway. So they see that kind of attitude and, and I think that's really important to show them, don't tell them.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  Do, do you know when you're doing a really good podcast? Cause you're doing one, right? Just so you know.

• 46:09Jesse Itzler?

  I'm just getting warm. I'm just, it took me, it took me like twenty to warm up, but now I feel like I'm hitting my.

• 46:14Speaker 00

  Ah, you were warm from the beginning. So I'm gonna tell everybody something about you and then I'd like you to answer it. And, and I don't know if you remember this or not, but. So Jesse was like a guy that a lot of different business influencers knew. I didn't. But I remember Lewis Howes going, you gotta meet Jesse Itzler and so and so's like, you guys would love each other. You gotta meet one another. Then we met and I loved him. And, uh, but he was like a guy like around the industry, but not in it. Okay? And I remember you came to watch me speak a couple of different times, or at least once that I recall. And I remember you going, hey, I wanna do something in this space.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  But I don't wanna do it like everybody else. Like I want it to be fun. I want it to have an experience element to it. And I remember going, yeah, that'd be cute. Good idea. You know, I remember thinking that. And then you did. And so you, you, you've built like, and just talk about this running man and, and you could speak specifically to that. Well, like if I'm trying to figure this guy out, like that's what I'm trying to do with you. Like the experience. Is a major part of the life journey for you, like the emotions, the feeling, the senses, the seeing, the. Being with people, the getting through the race. Talk about how you've approached this space.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  And why even overall, like experiences matter so deeply to you and it's, it seems like that's your life lens. Like the experience of life, more than like the day to day of doing it, if that makes sense.

• 47:40Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I mean, for starters, that's what makes me feel the most alive. So I gravitate towards, and I think most of us do like. Or at least maybe that's a good lens to look through how we're going through the, the, the rest of our lives is like. What makes us feel the most alive? Who makes us feel the most alive? Um, and we wanna spend as much time in those, with those people and doing those things. I made a promise to myself when I turned fifty. It was my birthday promise to myself. Then I'm gonna put more on my plate of what I love to do with the people I love to do them with. And I've done that. Every year I take a trip with my ten closest friends. You know, we've been doing that for the last several years. You know, I'm really, I am intentional about that, like.

• 48:23Jesse Itzler?

  Create, like I, I have a, my calendar has a lot of experiential stuff.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, it does.

• 48:28Jesse Itzler?

  Though, cause like. How many things, like, man, I've been alive for probably, I don't even know, man, twenty thousand days, seventy-five percent of my life is probably done, you know? And like, how many of that do I really remember? You know, like, we get, we get eight decades. Let's say you live to be eighty. You get eight decades. I'm going into my six. Decade one, zero to ten, ten to twenty, twenty to thirty, thirty to forty, forty to fifty. Now I'm on sixty and seventy to eighty is a different decade, man. You know what I mean? It's a different decade. I'm twelve years from seventy. So when I look back on all, all this stuff, like the things that like are bright memories in my mind are the experiences. The day to day stuff I do not really remember. I don't even know what I did four days ago.

• 49:13Jesse Itzler?

  I swear to God, I don't know where I was six days ago. I could not tell you where I was six days ago, but I could tell you every minute of my trip, my sauna tour in Finland with my friends. So those things, if those are the things that light me up and, and I remember the most, why wouldn't I want to double down on those? So that's sort of what I've been doing, especially and like easier in your, in your, again, like I said at the beginning of the podcast, in your, in your sixties. And you're probably going to have more money and freedom than you did in your twenties, thirties and forties. You just might not be as capable of doing the things or as well that you were in your twenties and thirties. Like I have a tour in Meniscus now, so I can't even, I haven't run in like five or six months at all.

• 49:57Jesse Itzler?

  I ran every single day for thirty five years and now like I can't, you're like, I didn't imagine. I'm like, I'm, I'm like, I'm going to be running this race called Badwater when I'm ninety seven. I'm going to be doing like, that's what was in my head, but like, you don't know. That's what I'm saying. Postponing could be cancelling. I wish I would have ran that race five years ago. Cause now I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it. So it's like, those are the things why I, I, um, I, I double down on that stuff and I, and I aggressively plan it on my big ass calendar.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  With big ass calendar and you guys can also check out the running man that he does every year. That sucker I think sells out too, but.

• 50:33Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  I gotta tell you, you did it to me again on this six decade thing. Now I'm thinking about that for the next month that I'm heading into my sixth decade. I'll tell you an interesting thing. So on an airplane last week and I knew you and I were doing this interview. This guy sits down next to me, super fit dude. I could tell he was older though, but like one of those guys, you're like, this dude looks incredible, right? So we start talking and, and he said, he said something so profound to me. He ended up telling me, he goes, not only, I go, bro, you look incredible, you know? And he was seventy three, right? And he goes, yeah, my brother looked just like me at seventy three. I mean, we're both fit. We both do a little peptide thing where, you know, we work out all the time. We eat right and, and, and he says to me, he goes, you know, uh, seventy three is the new fifty three, right?

• 51:19Speaker 00

  And I go, yeah, that's really true. You hear those sayings.

• 51:22Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah.

• 51:22Speaker 00

  But listen to what he says afterwards. And this is so profound. He goes, but you know what? Eighty is still eighty.

• 51:30Speaker 00

  He goes, my brother, my brother turned eighty and he goes, it just all catches up at eighty.

• 51:36Jesse Itzler?

  Eighty is still eighty.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Eighty is still eighty. And it really, basically what he was saying was it's true. You can rewind this time thing and your health for a while, but at one point you are eighty and eighty is eighty. My brother just, it's different at eighty. Now, whether or not that's true over time or not, but the point that he was making was like, yeah, but at some point you really can't do the things you could have done when you were younger. Do them now is basically what he was saying to me. Eighty is still eighty. Isn't that interesting?

• 52:05Jesse Itzler?

  Let me ask you a question. And so like, I ask this to, to almost everybody that I come across, having friends with, whatever, that have kids. Cause I have four kids. I have a seventeen year old, two, two twelves and a ten. And I ask them like, what would you have done differently now that your kids are in, you're an empty nester and your kid, like, would you have traveled more? Would you, is there anything you would have done differently with your children? If you could do, go all, go all, would you have homeschooled them? Would you have given them a language?

• 52:33Speaker 00

  Absolutely yes. And mine is, I would have been more present when I was there than I was. I was there, but sometimes I wasn't. So I would have been fully present when I was there and we would have traveled more as a family and had more experiences. Because we had a decent life and I was working, our home's nice, we'd go to it. But I mean, just intentionally leaving and creating something that they would never forget the rest of their life with their mom and their dad. I wish we'd done more of it. We did some, but I wish I had done more and I wish I would have soaked it in more when those moments, because as an empty nester, as you know, I keep telling people this and they think it's just the most obvious thing, but they are gone when they're gone.

• 53:13Speaker 00

  And now they visit me and I didn't know how cool it was that they were in the backseat of that car and I got to drive them to school. Cause it was just another day of driving them to school and we were late and they didn't, their homework wasn't done. And I wish I would have said, hey dude, slow down and look back there at them. They're not going to be sitting there forever. Soak it all in. What a, what a privilege it is to have them sitting this close to me every day to take it all in. So yeah, I would have changed that. What about you? You're doing it. Are you, are you on task?

• 53:42Jesse Itzler?

  Well, I'm trying not to miss the things that can't be repeated. That's like a big, like, I always wanted to do more as much as I can. And I still believe in that, like, I want to squeeze everything out of life, but I also like now I'm just making sure I try not to miss the things that, that can't be repeated. And not just with my kids, but like in all areas of my life.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:02Jesse Itzler?

  Um, but I ask that question a lot and like, one of the things I get a lot is they would have peeked from people that can afford to do it is they would have traveled more with their children. That's a common theme. Um, what you just said is a common theme, family dinners is a common theme. So I'm trying to take those regrets that people have and then not, and, and incorporate that stuff. So I don't have the same regrets.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:27Jesse Itzler?

  Like, I was lucky, man. When I was, uh, thirty about, we started Marquis Jet, my partner and I, we flew the who, so our Marquis Jet was a private jet company. It was a private jet car. Basically you bought twenty five hours of flight time.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:43Jesse Itzler?

  On, on your prepaid, let's just say a hundred grand. Your plane's available on eight hour notice anywhere in the country and it's a debit card. So if you flew from Laguna to Vegas, a one hour flight, you have twenty four hours left and we sold a lot of them.

• 54:57Jesse Itzler?

  And we made, we had a great thriving business at a young age. So like, it was amazing. I'm, you know, I went from like a couch to now like, we're making a lot of money year over year, flying the puzu of pop culture, CEOs and entrepreneurs. But the gift wasn't that. The gift was at thirty, I got to ask, cause I would show up, they were my customers. I would ask, I got to spend time and ask them questions. I didn't know, I would be like, where do you travel? What do you do with your money? Where do you vacation? What time do you get up? How many newspapers do you read? I would like from board these thought leaders and I became a compilation of that in my thirties.

• 55:38Jesse Itzler?

  I got the best habits, the best routines and the best mindsets from the best people. And I got to like trial and error, all that in my thirties.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  That's.

• 55:51Jesse Itzler?

  And I'm still doing it now, asking guys like you now. People out there now, they might, you don't have to start a jet company to get access to that. You have podcasts like yours. You ask the most interesting people, the most interesting questions and people from all over the world can listen to that at their leisure. Like it's insane, the amount of information you can become, you can become Jason Bourne, listening to your podcast.

• 56:16Jesse Itzler?

  You spend one year downloading your podcast wire to wire. You're going to be Jason Bourne.

• 56:23Speaker 00

  Thank you. That's, by the way, since he just said that, before we get out of here, cause I have one last question for him. You guys need to interact with Jesse. You should get the big, I'm going to do it. By the way, Max, my producer is also my son. He's here. Jesse sent me the calendar and the planner. I'm going to do it. I give you my word. I'm going to do it. I need this.

• 56:42Jesse Itzler?

  And I'll, I'll give you a, I'll give you a planning session. I'll sit with you for, for a half an hour. I'll map out your whole year in thirty minutes.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  Okay, we're doing it. I'm serious. Like I, I need this. Everybody does. And then also if you just go to his social and look, you can find out about running man and his coaching programs and everything that Jesse does. He's really, he's like the Dos Equis guy of personal development. He's like most interesting Renaissance man in the world. So, um, and I, and I regret what you said. I wish we were talking more, bro. I really do. I wish we did connect more often. We're just, we need to make it an intention. We'll put that on my calendar.

• 57:16Jesse Itzler?

  I'm going to run the Hope Island marathon by myself.

• 57:20Jesse Itzler?

  I can't run anymore. We'll walk it.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  I'll be, I'll be at the lemonade stand giving you your bananas and water when you come back. Um, last question, and it's a, it's kind of serious, I guess. I was thinking about both of us with our kids, so you kind of let into it and you got four babies and, uh, four total. You know how we talk about our dads, you and I, right? Like we know our dads, your dad was a plumber, my dad was a banker and everyone knows that my dad was in recovery from drugs and alcohol. And sometimes it's easy to forget. Your kids are figuring you out too. Someday your children will be telling stories of their dad and mom, Jesse and Sarah. They're going to tell stories of you.

• 58:02Speaker 00

  And as much as I hate to say it out loud, cause it makes me emotional, but I could play back that clip that I played for you in the beginning and your children only have so many more summers with you.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  And so many more meetings with you. And so I just wonder for you, do you ever think about that in reverse now with your children looking at you and how many more summers do they get with dad? How many more Christmases do they get? How many more trips are they gonna have? And if you do think about that, what of your life example do you want these precious babies of yours to be taking with you and maybe be telling their grandchildren about you someday?

• 58:40Jesse Itzler?

  I think about it a lot. I think about it a lot.

• 58:46Jesse Itzler?

  The only way, and it's, I think it's important to think about it because it helps you have a strategy and a plan of how you want to maximize that time.

• 58:54Jesse Itzler?

  Like I said earlier in the podcast, everybody has, you know, it's important to have a system that works for you. And my system has evolved a lot. And once I could afford to do this, like I shut down at four o'clock when my kids come home. So I get a lot of one-on-one time and alone time. I take a one-on, Sarah takes a one-on-one trip with all the kids every year. We have a whole plan around, like I'm saying, like we really think about this stuff, man. Like you can't wing it. It's really important to me, but I'm also aware that everything can change like that. I'm not foolish in thinking that like I am Superman. I am in, I have forever. I'm gonna, you know, like 80. I was thinking when you said that about the guy that says 80 is still 80, like would I sign up for 80 right now? Like if someone said right now,

• 59:39Speaker 00

  You get to go to 80.

• 59:40Jesse Itzler?

  You could write a check and you get eight, you're guaranteed 80, but at 80, it's over. Would I sign up for that?

• 59:48Jesse Itzler?

  Maybe.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 59:50Jesse Itzler?

  Maybe. And like, back in the day, like would I sign up, like when you're, when you're 20, would you sign up for 50? No. When you're 60, would you sign up for 80 with all this [BLEEP] going on in the world and this and that? I might do it, man.

• 1:00:03Speaker 00

  I might do it.

• 1:00:05Jesse Itzler?

  I might do it. That's all, that means that would be 22 more years for me. I might do it.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Me too.

• 1:00:12Jesse Itzler?

  Because like, I, I would rather know I had 22 than know that like my life, anything could happen and like, you know, yeah, I can't even watch, like we, Sarah and I were watching a movie about like, we wanted to watch a show and get into a show together. And we watched a show and it was about, it was about a kid that died and the detective was like the, I'm like, I watched eight minutes of it. I'm like, I can't, I can't handle this. I can't watch this. Like I can't even go, and that's like, that's a fake show on TV. I'm, I'm crying at the, they're, they didn't even start the [BLEEP] movie yet. And they're running the preview and [BLEEP]. I'm like, I'm crying. I can't watch this because it takes me to like my own.

• 1:00:57Jesse Itzler?

  So, you know, I think about it a lot and I try to maximize it. I do the best job I can to spend quality time with my kids. I have one rule. I'm never too tired for my kids. So if my kids want to have a baseball catch and I just did a speech in Vegas and I flew home and it's, I took the red eye, but they, yes. Yes.

• 1:01:20Jesse Itzler?

  Because those are things I can't do in 10 years or they might not want to do in 10, or maybe less. So I, I'm, I'm really aware of that. Awareness is, is important.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. Great. You, uh, you're just unique, bro. You're very special. And I know you hear that from everybody, but you know, I've done 900, a thousand shows. This one's going to stand out for me too. I was watching last night, go watch it by the way. There's a ESPN thing on Tyson now. And, uh, I was crying too. He ends up talking about custom auto, his trainer really quick. And custom auto dying. And, uh, he can't get, he loses air. He can't get the words out, you know? And I just, I'm sitting there alone. Actually last night was a rare night. I'm on the island alone. I'm in, I'm in bed watching this, crying, just like you just said,

• 1:02:12Speaker 00

  at the thought of, you know, someday my children will have that moment where they tell someone that I'm gone. And it's flipped now. And, uh, for what it's worth, man, when I watch you, your kids are, we said caught, not taught, your kids are catching how to live a really extraordinary life. Actually just really dude, how to li, just live life, not exist. I feel like you live your life and it's a good example for me. And I'm going to take you up on that planning session. I promise I'm definitely.

• 1:02:40Jesse Itzler?

  Hey, $49. $49, you can see your whole year. I'm glad you brought that up. I don't have a salesperson on my team. I don't, my team is like so small. We don't have a sales rep. I don't like pushing things, but the calendar really is, especially at this time of year, for 49, and, and by the way, even if you had a calendar or planner, like whether it was ours or not, at the end of the year, if you went through your phone and you scrolled and you just said, okay, like what does every business do at the end of the year? They do an audit of the year. Like what would we could, if you just took everything out of your phone and then, and then filled in your calendar at the end of the year, you didn't use it as a planning

• 1:03:20Jesse Itzler?

  tool, but you use it as like a review session, you'll see a lot of gaps and you'll be amazed at what you maybe have done and you forgot about. Or wow, man, like I can't believe how many, you know, business trip, how many days I was away from home. Or I can't believe how little I, you know, spent for myself. And that can help you make adjustments for 2027.

• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  Today helped me a lot, helped everybody a lot. You're just incredible, bro. So he's got a bunch of things that he also can offer you as well. So follow Jesse on social. Thank you, brother. Today was exceeded my expectations and they were very, very high. So thank you.

• 1:03:59Jesse Itzler?

  You're Jason Bourne-ing people, Ed. You're Jason Bourne-ing people.

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  I love. All right, everybody. God bless you. Max out.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  This is the Ed Miliband Show.

• 1:04:14Speaker 04

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