24hrs With The Happiest Billionaire, Jesse Itzler

MFM

That is *un-frigging* believable. That made me cry.

Shaan Puri

**This is Jesse Itzler**, 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**. 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. Alright, we're here to do an annual planning session with the one and only **Jesse Itzler**. They always tell you to "think like a billionaire." Well, I came to a billionaire's house to see how he thinks about planning his year. There he is—welcome to the house, Jesse. </FormattedResponse>

MFM

"What's going on, man?"

Shaan Puri

Last year you came on the podcast and you were like, "Here's how you do it. This is what you do." I was so inspired. I left and I did about 25% of the process. So this year my forcing function was, "I'm coming to his house — I'm going to do it with him." That's because, you know, I'm a *procrastinator*.

MFM

Yeah.

Shaan Puri

So I was like, "Oh—I've got the whole year to plan this." Yep. And then, come the whole year, I still didn't do all of the steps. So this year I'm going into the year with **more momentum**.

MFM

A year's a long time.

Shaan Puri

"Yeah."

MFM

You're not gonna sit down and be like, "Oh, here's all 365 and I'm gonna do it in two." It doesn't work like that, right? Figure out what you want to put your energy into this year. And then once you get that... but I'll give you the whole thing anyway. Welcome. You want a quick tour? This is **Taylor**. This is **Taylor**. Hello, **Courtney**. Courtney, what's in that smoothie?

Shaan Puri

**Cocoa powder, chocolate, protein powder, bananas, flaxseed.** Courtney, how good is honey? How good is this avocado going to be when I try it? It's real — it'll blow your mind.

MFM

It'll blow your mind. So, this doesn't look like anything special, but we're big on **family dinners**. We have a ton of family dinners, and every night we have a guest, all the kids at the table have to ask the guest at least one question. What's great about that is it makes the kids inquisitive. It teaches them a little bit about public speaking — looking people in the eye — and we coach them through that. In today's world, where there's so much of this, getting them to talk, communicate, and be curious — "where'd curiosity go?" — is important. The best thing my parents did for me when I was a kid was they didn't over-schedule me. They let me *be bored*. I used to go with my mom — she was on the board of education — to three-hour meetings once a month, and she would give me a box of crayons and paper. I'd be so bored, but then I'd dream about being on the Knicks, dream about being an astronaut, think about a girl in the class or whatever. It just got my creative juices rolling. It also taught me to be patient and to self-soothe — you know, all the things that have been stripped from kids. This is a very meaningful room for us.

Shaan Puri

We're about to walk on a skybridge. I guess I don't know what to call this—this is amazing. Can I sponsor it? Can this be my *"First Million Sky Bridge"*? Do we get, like, a sticker on the bottom? **Absolutely.**

MFM

Oh, I'm excited about this. I know you're anxious to get started. I think before we start and do anything — like anything in life — we *gotta* get into the **right mind state**. You don't want to just come straight off a plane, tired. I think we have to get — you know — ready. This goes for anybody, by the way: whether you want to plan, have a meeting with your significant other or partner, or even meet with yourself, you have to get excited about it, be ready to do it, and be in the right mindset. What I love to do is just take you through what I do in the morning: a **quick little workout**. I do this quick little workout, maybe jump in the sauna, and then we'll come back here. *You'll feel great — perfect.*

Shaan Puri

**Let's do it.** Good—yeah, let's do it.

MFM

"I don't have a lot of time like you. I used to say, 'Oh, I need an hour to work out.' I saw this thing on Instagram that's like *twelve, ten motions* that everybody should do, and I put it on my wall. It's basically ten exercises. By the way, I don't even know if I'm doing all this shit right."

Shaan Puri

But I just... but you're...

MFM

**I'm doing it.** I'm doing it, and *it feels good*. It takes me about six minutes, and I'm like, "every part of my body's getting worked."</FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

"Yeah. Call this a *no excuse*, because if you don't have six minutes, you don't have a life."

MFM

The only thing is, I got a bad foot—I'm getting an x-ray. I think I broke my foot. *I'm not even kidding.* Let's go to the sign. You good, Sean?

Shaan Puri

I'm good.

MFM

"Oh, it's a good sign. See the smoke? That means we're cooking up. That means we're cooking up. Yeah, come on in. So, you wanna hear something *crazy*? This is — this is, you know, water, but this is 50% beer and 50% water, and it creates..."

Shaan Puri

You get a buzz, too.

MFM

I'm a big believer in learning from the *masters*. I had "goddess of me," *master of mindset*. I live with the monks, *masters of spirituality*. I live with Wim Hof, the *master of cold* — the master of, you know, cold and breath. I went to Finland, the masters of the sauna. I did a ten-day tour of 30 different saunas. One of the gals leading a session suggested that we use beer. So I was like, "All right, the master said 'beer,' right? We use beer." </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

That's why I'm here. The masters of "That's Planning Your Why" wanted to come to you. [possible event name] The reason I wanted to come out here is because I don't travel much. I have little kids at home, so I try not to travel. This was a no-brainer for me because I wrote a blog post a while back called *Who Is Your Elon?* I live in San Francisco, and in San Francisco Elon [Musk] is like the North Star everybody chases: do something really big, really impactful, really ambitious, really challenging. He might be the world's first trillionaire, and that's amazing. I love Elon; I love that he exists — but I don't want to be Elon. It would be foolish for me to choose that as my North Star or a blueprint to follow because I don't want to be divorced three times and have multiple kids, and there are all these other parts of that picture that I don't love. So I thought about that and asked myself: what is the blueprint I actually like? Where are examples I can model where people have success in their career but also success at home? They're healthy — running marathons and whatnot, super fit. There's adventure, friendships, and more. I don't have all of that laid out. I kind of wanted to meet somebody who's further ahead in that game, someone who lives that version of a good life. For me, winning is winning in all those areas: having my cake and eating it too with my friends and family — with a big-ass fork. That's what I wanted to do. How do I assemble this life that has all those components, rich in all those areas, not just rich financially? </FormattedResponse>

MFM

Yeah, no—I love that. And, you know, you mentioned *Clues*. First of all, *thank you for choosing me.*

Shaan Puri

"Sorry to flatter you in the sauna here."

MFM

No, I love that. But you mentioned *clues*... I've been picking up little clues. I'm 57 years old, and I've been picking up little clues throughout my journey by asking a lot of questions of people that I look up to. They're not necessarily people who have a zillion followers or zillions of dollars. There's just something in their life that I really like—whether it's how they take care of their kids, how they spend their time, or whatever it is.

Shaan Puri

The calendar is like a *blank check*, right? You get to — you get to write whatever amount you want on that for what you want out of this year.

MFM

**"The calendar is your most honest autobiography."** It is your highlight reel—at least for me. It's where I want to put my energy. When I have things on my calendar, it helps me. It gives me permission to say no. If something is on my calendar, that means I have energy for it. If something doesn't belong there, I don't have to put as much energy into it. Now, I might have a wedding on my calendar. I might have other responsibilities on my calendar—those are things I can't control. I'm talking about the things that I'm writing and the things I'm excited about. [Interviewer:] "How old are your kids?"

Shaan Puri

6, 4, and 1.

MFM

This is the **critical time**. They're all watching you — they're watching your habits. If you're efficient, planning, and a doer, your kids have a higher chance of being doers. My nine-year-old son ran a marathon two years ago when he was nine. He's 11 now. He didn't do that because he was playing Fortnite. He did that because he watched me go out in the rain and in the snow to pursue goals. You don't understand the impact of even coming out here. If you can explain to your six-year-old, "Hey, Daddy wanted to get better. He took a long trip to invest in himself to get better," that's a powerful lesson. You're **showing them, not telling them**.

Shaan Puri

**"Right, love that."**

MFM

Yeah, let's go do this.

Shaan Puri

Do this.

MFM

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 turned them into a guide titled "How to Plan a Massive 2026 in Less Than 60 Minutes." If you want those notes, you can get them right now via the link in the description. Now back to the episode, Jesse.

Shaan Puri

"Teach me how to play on..."

MFM

My game — 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. We don't get a lot of them, and we're also busy. I feel like, in general, most people plan their life around work. I think it's really important to **plan work around your life**. In other words, we tend to play life on defense. Our calendars fill up with other people's requests for time: Zoom calls and meetings, weddings and appointments, and kids' stuff. Before you know it... what do we have to show for a whole year?

Shaan Puri

> I've always thought of myself as the **CEO** of my company, but not the *CEO of my life*. It's like my life is the only real project. > > I kind of want to think of myself more as, like, the *CEO of my life*—the *architect of my life*. And, like an architect, I want to have my blueprints that I want to follow. > > Of course I'll improvise, but I'd like to have a **blueprint** versus just winging it—just reacting to the latest thing, you know.

MFM

Got it. Well, the way this came about—just to give a little bit of background—is that my life got very busy. I have multiple businesses, four children, and I'm married. I also had elderly parents I was taking care of, friends I want to see, and races I want to do. There was just so much I wanted to do and I didn't have a system for it. I just kept getting older, and as more and more stuff came on my plate, I needed a system. So I do **three things** every year as the backbone of my planning, and this is where I start. The first thing I like to do I call *getting light*. I want to come into 2026 fired up—hitting the ground, not playing catch-up. I want to be ready to go. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

No baggage.

MFM

**Getting Light** — no baggage, light. I literally want to feel light. I even like the term *getting light*. Getting light means closing out the year the proper way. We have a little jar here — step one: **getting light**. You can see that it's empty because there will be nothing in your jar when you're done. Getting light starts, for me, at home. The first things getting light means: - Get rid of all the apps on your phone that you don't use. - Cancel all the subscriptions you're paying for but don't use. - Go through your closet and donate all the clothing you don't wear. That might sound insignificant, but it's very significant. It's a sign of newness — a sign of "I'm coming into the year" by getting rid of stuff I don't need anymore. It's also your desk: come in and don't have clutter everywhere. It's your filing cabinet. It's your car — is your car messy? Do you have your insurance in your car? It's about getting everything tight. By the way, that whole process to me could take like an hour. I'm not talking about needing a week. It's like your emails — I get my emails to zero, delete...

Shaan Puri

Save "respond" — like, *right now*. Forget email. That's how many unread text messages I have.

MFM

"I don't... I don't even know how many. That's 815."

Shaan Puri

So I'm coming into the new year with 815 obligations—yeah, 815 guilt trips: mistakes that I've made, basically. If I don't clear that out... You told me before this; you said, "Hey—**step one: get light**." I couldn't do that here because I'm at your house, so I did it. A couple things I learned right away: First of all, just doing the simplest action gave me momentum. Planning my year felt big and heavy—like, "Oh God, I have to know what I want in life." And it's like, dude, I haven't known that for 37 years. Am I sure today is the day I could do this? Versus what I did: I went to my car and, like, you know, cleaned out the cup-holder area. [The final phrase in the original recording was unclear: "got little kids so that is like nom that you know that."]

MFM

Is popcorn like everything in it?

Shaan Puri

I don't know — there's a whole history of life in that little cup holder. So I just cleaned out the cup holder, the *simplest possible action*, and right away I felt a little lighter — like **one layer off my back**. Then I did it to my desk. I did it to my subscriptions: I canceled $1,300 in monthly subscriptions for random apps and software we'd been signed up for. I already started to feel lighter and pretty amazing. I cleaned up my home gym too — which is just mine; nobody else works out there, but I do. Those are places I go every day: my car, my gym, my desk. It all feels new — like it's ready for something new, versus the same old, same old.

MFM

I think it's highly significant — you're describing *momentum*. Momentum is not to be underestimated. If you start the first week after the holidays and everything's a mess, you have to play catch-up. You're going through 815 texts. Is that a good way to start the year? Or would you rather do all that now, in this little cleanup we're in now, get it all done and then come in ready to... "I'm in attack mode"? I don't want to feel like I have a knapsack of weight on me. I want to come in attack mode. So, if you're listening to this, I highly encourage you to spend a little bit of time, get organized, get light.

Shaan Puri

Alright, here we go. What's number two?

MFM

Closing out your year. So, every good business... After you get, like, you know, what does every good business do at the end of the year?

Shaan Puri

"Close the books, they..."</FormattedResponse>

MFM

**Close the books.** They have a review session: they think about what worked, what didn't, etc. I like to close out my year, and that process for me is pretty simple. The first thing I do is **take inventory of myself**. I do a little review of what worked and what didn't. I have a calendar — obviously I have my **big-ass calendar**. What I like to do is go through my phone and write down all the highlights. My calendar is my **highlight reel**. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Right.

MFM

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. I 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 see where my gaps were and see what I accomplished. A lot of people forget. They think, "Oh my God—I forgot that we went, I took this weekend trip, or I went to this..." </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

"I can't tell you what I did."

MFM

So, do a thorough review on *one big piece of paper*. Go back through your phone. And, by the way, now you have a great *time capsule* of 2025.

Shaan Puri

Right.

MFM

So, I do a little **personal audit**. I go through my entire year again. It takes about 20 minutes.

Shaan Puri

"We actually got a quick gift for you."

MFM

Oh, I *love* gifts.

Shaan Puri

So we know that you do a *year-end review*, so we actually made a photo album.

MFM

And hey, so this is *unbelievable*.

Shaan Puri

You got everything?

MFM

See.

Shaan Puri

I think your kid just started driving this year.

MFM

I would never have said—if you had asked me this year, "What was your highlight?"—I would have said, "Oh, I did this race." I would have never remembered, and this just happened. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Right.

MFM

This just happened: *my son got*...

Shaan Puri

His license, and you get to feel. </FormattedResponse>

MFM

Good. Again, I'm looking at this picture—it's lighting me up. I never remembered. That's why it's so important to have things like this. By the way, this is a great strategy. A great **year-end** strategy is to make a year-end family or year-end review book, which is something I'm doing now. I'm going through all the old years and making little books so I can remember what I actually did. Thank you so much. What was...

Shaan Puri

The first page that you were talking about beat us.

MFM

I mean, this is insane: football championship, my son learning how to drive, running man races that we did [unclear: "twenty nine zero twenty nine"], going to surf camp. I would have never—this is what I'm saying. To do a review actually and say, like, "Wow, makes me feel good, thank you. You wanna sit here and do this?" One thing that I love to do is write **handwritten letters**. I love to spend a little bit of time and write thank-you letters to people. Like, "Hey, Sean—you know what? There are 8 billion people in the world and you chose me to be on your podcast. Thank you so much for the opportunity to address your audience." I love sending those out. 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. 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 a send, so there's a different energy.

Shaan Puri

And you're *not* outsourcing this. You're *not* giving it to an assistant somewhere.

MFM

No, so part of it's *selfish*. I'm planting seeds as a networking tool, and it's just a *thank-you note*. You know, we've built a relationship, and this is part of that process. The recipient feels great about it. They think, "Oh my god, this guy took enough time to handwrite me a letter." That makes them feel good. I've been doing this since I was 21 years old. Even this year I'll write 25 letters. Even 10 is amazing — 10 to 25. You can do them on the plane or while you're watching a football game. It probably takes about three minutes per [letter]. Right — so you're talking about...

Shaan Puri

Oh, that's perfect. I'll do this on my flight back. I can either watch a *shitty airplane movie*, or I can just kind of flood myself with, you know, being grateful and spreading some good karma out into the world.

MFM

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. That's an *ink stain* in your brain; you'll probably never forget it, you know.

Shaan Puri

"Ink stain in the brain. I like that."

MFM

Yeah. So that's another strategy for closing out the year — part of my process. I think that anybody can have a good year. Things are going to happen: they'll get an invitation to something; there will be a highlight. To have an okay year, you could do it. **Who the fuck wants to have an okay year?** You don't get a lot of years.</FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

**Right.**

MFM

"Like, you wanna—like, I wanna. Can I see that for a second? Can you show that—2026? Let's hold this up for a second. Let's see. Right here: this is *my year* for next year. I'm gonna show you how to do this right now. **K is fully baked.** This is so epic. It's already done; I just haven't... All I have to do is follow this script, and it's color-coordinated. But this is my highlight reel. Alright."

Shaan Puri

Green is family travel.

MFM

Family, travel, speeches, holidays, birthdays. I have races in red [on my calendar]. This is everything — all the things I'm doing. I'll walk you through all of this: running, man, etcetera. But my point is: you're not just hoping for a great year; you can plan it, right? I can have a good year. Maybe a couple of people invite me on a great trip — that's amazing. Or I can sit down and ask, "What's going to light me up? What am I so excited about this year that I wake up with no pressure?" I know that if I execute this... and this doesn't mean I'm not working. This is not about skipping work. I'm just planning *me* before my work. Work's always going to be there. I'm going to work a lot more hours than I'm going to do this, but I want to plan what will truly excite me.

Shaan Puri

Right.

MFM

But that's different. I'm talking about the stuff that, at the end of the day, your six-year-old—your kids—are going to like. You're going to have a photo book like that. There are 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. You talked about resolutions, but I like something I do better than resolutions. There's an old Japanese ritual called the *misogi*. 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 wrote—I'm launching a book," whatever it is. You want to have one big, really big, year-defining thing. If I were to say to you right now, "What'd you do in 20—?" If you ask me, "What'd you do in 20—?" I wrote Living with the SEAL in 2017. I launched 29Zero29, a business, in 2021. I did a race called Ultraman in 2023. I rode my bike across America in 2024. I did Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim in 2025. Every year you should be able to do that. And if you can do that... how old are you?

Shaan Puri

I'm 37 years old.

MFM

So, if you can do that—if you started now and you had **one big, year-defining goal**, and you lived to be 87, you'd have 50 monumental things that you've accomplished in your life. That's a heck of a ride.

Shaan Puri

**Right.**

MFM

Heck of a ride. The first thing I encourage people to do is think about—in 2026, at the end of the year in December: if you didn't even do anything else but you just did this, right, **you're gonna... 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"? You might not know what that is now, but when it is, **put that down on the damn calendar ASAP.** That is really important. I don't think it has to be something huge or impossibly hard. Truly, you're defining something meaningful—not like, "Oh, I took a trip to Italy." That's a trip to Italy. I'm talking about what you did. We launched a brand-new program with billionaires for a three-day sleepover party.

Shaan Puri

Right.

MFM

At our friend's house... *that's a big task.*

Shaan Puri

Can I show you what I...

MFM

Did? Yes.

Shaan Puri

Okay. So last year, when we talked on the podcast, you brought up the idea of *Misogi*. I was like, "I'm gonna do that," but I didn't know what it was initially. You were talking about races, Ironman, Twitter... I was like, "I wanna do something that's real to me — what's the thing I would be excited about, that I would feel proud of, and that would be hard for me... are gonna..."

MFM

Play *Beethoven* out here.

Shaan Puri

So I decided—after the call popped into my mind—I thought, "I'm going to learn to jam out on the piano." Stop it. Because the same night that you had brought it up, and I was thinking about the musogi, I was on *YouTube*. There was a video by this guy—he's *the most famous piano player in the world*—and he was playing one of his songs. I just thought to myself, "I'm going to play that."

MFM

"That's unreal. Alright. My first performance—my..."

Shaan Puri

**"First audience ever."** That's unbelievable. That's amazing. It's so funny—at my house I play and nobody cares, and this is the first time anyone actually liked to listen to it. So yeah.

MFM

"Us, I don't even know what."

Shaan Puri

To say.</FormattedResponse>

MFM

Man, I was like...

Shaan Puri

And after what was probably one of the best moments of my life, I decided it's time to get out of it. We said our goodbyes and left **Jesse's** house. "Alright — that is a wrap." We planned our year with **Jesse Itzler**. He had us at his house. We talked shop, did a sauna together, worked out together, had an incredible day, and I'm feeling energized going into next year. I hope you were feeling energized too and got a little peace, a little taste of what I got today. So, thank you to **Jesse** for making this happen, and we'll see you in 2026.