If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life. Please watch this video…

This is probably the most important video I'll ever make. I'm gonna teach you how to plan and dominate 2026 in literally 12 minutes. This is the exact same system I've been using for almost three decades to help me launch businesses, run 100 mile races, go on adventures, and literally just be super time rich, something nobody talks about. I have a wife, I have four kids, and there's literally no way that I can manage everything going on in my life without the system that I'm about to share with you right now. If you do everything the same that you did last year, but you add this three-step system, you will literally bear hug me if you see me next December. So the first thing we have to do is we have to close out the year. Before we can go into 2026, we really have to close out 2025. What does every business in America do at the end of the year? They do an audit, they look through the year and say what worked, what didn't work, and I highly encourage everybody here to do the same thing. Just take a minute before we get even into the system and think about this year. Like, what worked, what didn't work, what did you accomplish? I mean, for me, it was an incredible year. I ran races, I took trips with my family, I went to Finland with my friends. Like, take it in, like take a little inventory on how the year went. But then you have to start a formal process to close out the year. And the theme for me around closing out the year is always the same thing. I don't wanna carry any extra big things on my to-do list, I don't want my destiny messy, I wanna come in at the beginning of the year ready to attack 2026. So the way that I do that, believe it or not, it starts in my closet. I go in my closet every day. What I like to do is if I pick out a garment or a piece of clothing, and I'm 50-50 if I should keep it or not, I'm always like, someone else probably needs this more than me. So you wanna get your closet super organized. Then I go down to my desk. I want a clean desk going into 2026. I don't want messy papers, I want everything organized. So I take a little time, I declutter my desk, and I get organized. I do a digital detox. I literally go like this, delete all. I wanna get my inbox to zero. And then lastly, one thing that I've been doing for the last 25 years that's really helpful, at the end of the year, I write handwritten letters. I literally make a list, almost like a thank you list, to the people that have helped me or influenced me or had an impact on me in 2025. And I write them a handwritten note. People don't necessarily read all their DMs. They might not read their emails. They might have an assistant that screens stuff. Everybody reads their letters. So I carve out about two or three hours at the end of the year. I write 20 to 30 thank you letters to people who have made a difference this year in my life. Lick a stamp, put them in an envelope, and put them in the mailbox. And the response that I get from those letters is overwhelming. I mean, I've been doing that literally since I'm in my 20s. To this day, people still come over to me, they're like, I got your letter, thank you so much. And those letters are always one way. Hey Jimmy, man, thank you so much for having me on your podcast this year. There are eight billion people in the world, and you chose me to be on your podcast. I just wanted to thank you so much. That was one of the highlights of my year. Hoping you guys have a great, healthy, happy new year and an amazing 2026 in the mailbox. Send them out, the more the merrier. It's a great marketing tool, a great networking tool. Makes the recipient feel great, and it makes you feel accomplished and good about sending it. Write those handwritten letters. And then last, last, last, last thing before we get ready to figure out how we're gonna actually dominate the year, just getting rid of the housekeeping stuff, this is an amazing exercise that I use to help me identify what I have to fix in the upcoming year. So you guys can do it with me real quick. Just imagine you had a huge blender, like you were gonna make a smoothie in a blender, and you put all the buckets of your life in the blender. Your finances, your weight, your relationships, your happiness, where you live. Everything goes in the blender. And you shake it up. And then on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being like unbelievable and one being rock bottom, where are you on a one to 10? Where are you? And give yourself an honest answer. Like in life, all the things go in a blender. Like am I a seven, am I a two? Where am I in the happiness scale? Now what I love about this exercise is when you put everything on a blender and go one to 10, where am I on the happiness meter? Immediately your brain goes to the two or three things that pull you from a 10 to whatever your number is. So maybe if it happened to you, you'd be like, oh, it's my finances, it's my relationship, it's my weight. Whatever popped into your head, those are the things that you have to work on in 2026. So no matter how much money you make, no matter how successful you are, if you don't fix the two or three things that popped into your head, you're still gonna stay at a seven, at a six, at a five. So that's a great tool to identify what you have to work on and fix in 2026. All right, next. Let's get into the meat and potatoes of this. So we've gotten light, but now we actually have to plan an amazing year. So what I've found is that most of the people listening to this probably play life on defense. Their calendars fill up with other people's requests for our time. We get bombarded with Zoom calls and doctor's appointments and meetings. And at the end of the year, like we have no time for ourself. Like what do we even have to show for it at the end of the year? I flip that model upside down. I play life on offense. If you do these three things, your life will get way better. So the first thing that I do every year is called the Misogi. There's an old Japanese ritual called the Misogi and the notion around a Misogi is you do one big year defining thing every year. So if I was gonna ask you like, what'd you do in 2015? What'd you do in 2023? What'd you do eight days ago? You probably couldn't tell me, but it's really important at the end of the year to have one big, like giant year defining. You have to have something to show for the year. So for me in 2015, I wrote a book called Living With The Seal. In 2016, I launched a company called 29029. A couple of years ago, I rode my bike across America. Last year I did rim to rim to rim with my friends. Like you wanna have one big year defining thing. So think about in 2026, like what's that one thing that's gonna be truly year defining for you? It could be, I'm gonna run a marathon. It could be, I'm gonna launch a podcast. Maybe you're gonna stop smoking. I don't know. But you wanna have one really big thing that defines 2026. So the next thing I do is called Kevin's Rule. It's named after my friend, Kevin. Kevin and I were on a trip with our two kids. His daughter was I think eight at the time. My son was seven. And we went to Mount Washington in New Hampshire in the winter. And we camped out in the snow. It's like freezing outside. We're in a sleeping bag. There's no one around. I turned to Kevin, I'm like, There's eight billion people in the world. We are the only people at Mount Washington. Like this was such a good idea. Kevin is a police officer. One of the happiest guys I ever met. I'm like, how often do you get to do stuff like this? Every year since I graduated college, I take a trip every other month that I normally wouldn't have done. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, I just go to like a little, instead of watching the Georgia football game, I'll go camping with my daughters or maybe I'll go swim in the ocean. I just take like a little mini adventure. One day every other month. I'm like, why? He's like, well then I know I have like six little mini adventures every year. I'm like, that's amazing. I want to take six mini adventures every year. I go, why do you do that? He goes, because if you're 30 years old and you live to be 80 and you take six mini adventures every year, that's 300 mini adventures you wouldn't have taken. I'm like, I'm doing that. And I'm naming it Kevin's rule. A lot of people's knee jerk reaction is like, well, I don't have the money for that. That's so expensive. No, I've been doing stuff like this since I'm 21 when I was sleeping on my friend's couches. I would go to the polar plunge in Coney Island, free. The trip that I took to Mount Washington with Kevin cost $18 to park, plus a sleeping bag. I mean, this country affords us trails, rivers, hikes, oceans, there's marathons, there's races where entry fees are $30, $40. Like there's things that you can do that don't cost a lot of money that can move the needle. So look and think about those type of activities. And then the third thing I do is I add a winning habit every quarter. We're all products of winning habits, winning routines, and a winning mindset. And if we're constantly layering in better habits, better routines, we're just gonna get better by definition. So instead of resolutions, this works much better for me. Every quarter, I add a winning habit. That could be, I don't drink enough water. I'm gonna add a hundred, I'm gonna drink a hundred ounces of water every day. I'm gonna add a 10 minute a day meditation practice to my life. I'm never gonna be late for a meeting. But if I could add four winning habits every year, six Kevin rule trips and a Misogi, unbelievable. So I've been doing that for a really long time and I've built an incredible life resume with that. And the reason is if you don't plan it, it won't happen. So how do we plan it? That's what I'm gonna show you how to do next. Planning is so important. I've already planned out my entire 2026. It's fully baked and it is insane. So this is my entire year on one single piece of paper. This is the big ass calendar that we sell. And I have my whole year baked out. I have everything color coordinated. This is a dry erase calendar, by the way. I have my speeches and work in purple, my races and adventures in green. I have birthdays in yellow. I have holidays and trips in orange. I think it's really important to prioritize yourself. So anything that you know that you wanna do, any races, weddings, concerts, sporting events, anything fun, put it down on the calendar first. Work is always gonna fill in. But if you put the things that you wanna do on your calendar first, you're guaranteed to have an epic year. Now I get the permission to say no to things that I don't wanna do. I've prioritized me. And the reason why I love putting it on a calendar like this, one, it's super visual. We're all visual humans. We see in pictures, we see in images. It's color coordinated. I can track where I'm spending my time. I can track where the gaps are in my time. I can track towards certain goals easily by seeing the dates. I'm super organized. And at the end of the year, this is the most honest autobiography of my life. I'm gonna roll this up, keep it in my closet. In 20 years from now, I'm gonna show my kids. I'm like, this is what I did in 2026. These are the trips that we took. These are all the things that we did in 2026. The more you can bake your 2026 calendar now, in November, in December, in January, then all you have to do is follow the script. I'm not saying you shouldn't be spontaneous. Of course I have room to be spontaneous. I'm not saying that things don't change and you can move the stickers around. Of course things change. But if you don't have a plan and you're not planning newness where in the world is it gonna come from? In 2026, play life on offense, be aggressive putting down the things that you want to do and you'll get them done. Oh, if you want one of these calendars, just click the link in the description or go to thebigasscalendar.com. Also the link below gets you 10% off this calendar and it's only on YouTube. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you in the next one.