245. Jesse Itzler & Devon Levesque: On Life Design, The Misogi Ritual and Winning Routines

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka

Episode 245: Jesse Itzler & Devon Levesque: On Life Design, The Misogi Ritual and Winning Routines
Date: February 17, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively, inspiring episode, Gary Brecka hosts Jesse Itzler (entrepreneur, author, adventurer) and Devin Levesque (athlete, entrepreneur) for a powerful roundtable on intentional living, designing your life for adventure, the "misogi" ritual, building good habits, forging authentic relationships, and the routines that drive fulfillment as well as success. The tone is candid, humorous, and energetic, with all three sharing personal anecdotes, “aha” moments, and actionable tips from their own journeys.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Misogi Ritual: Designing a Meaningful Life

[00:00 - 07:47]

• Jesse Itzler introduces the misogi, a Japanese tradition of doing one major, year-defining challenge annually.
  • “If you don't have one thing to show for your year, your work life balance is so out of whack.” (Jesse, 05:31)
  • Itzler stacks these big “misogis” with six mini-adventures per year (Kevin's Rule) to intentionally add newness to his life and avoid the rut of routine.
• Big insight: Even just one large challenge and several small adventures per year can lead to hundreds of memories and a more interesting, fulfilled life.
• Quote: “You bond so much more with people through experiences than you do sitting at a cubicle.” (Jesse, 03:16)

2. Meeting and Bonding Through Adventure

[08:00 - 14:38]

• How Jesse & Devin Met: They first connected at the 29029 event—climbing the elevation of Mt. Everest in 36 hours—then flew to Atlanta for a basketball game mid-challenge before finishing the race.
  • “We finished the whole race with 30 minutes to spare. And that was the first 36 hours I ever met Jesse, by the way.” (Devin, 10:10)
• Adventure as a Catalyst for Deep Friendships
  • Shared intense experiences (from marathons to sauna tours) build bonds that outpace years spent side-by-side at work.
  • “One adventure is like ten years of sitting at a cubicle.” (Jesse, 14:29)

3. Intentional Scheduling & “Big-Ass Calendar”

[11:47 - 13:15]

• Gary describes implementing Itzler’s “Big-Ass Calendar,” where family, adventure, and self-care are scheduled first, then work is added around them.
  • “This is the first time we've ever done this... I've been so much more intentional about my time with my kids.” (Gary, 12:01)
• Jesse: “You can see where you have gaps in your time. You can literally see where you're spending time and not spending time, what you're neglecting, what you're not doing right.” (Jesse, 12:49)

4. Life Design & Learning from Experience

[18:33 - 25:42]

• Jesse’s Unconventional Path: From running a jingle company, to living with Navy SEAL David Goggins (whose discipline and simplicity deeply influenced him for years), to founding Marquee Jet with zero aviation experience.
  • “You are the combination of all these experiences... you didn’t just let them pass through your life. You said, what can I learn from this?” (Gary, 18:43)
  • “Learn like you’ll live forever, and live like you’ll die tomorrow.” – Gandhi, cited by Jesse, 19:25
• Simplicity and Clarity: Downsizing possessions, focusing on what you love with people you love—making more space for what matters.
  • “When you can downsize to figuring out what you love to do, the people you love to do it with, and do more of that, that’s a great journey.” (Jesse, 22:48)

5. Developing Personal Systems & Saying No

[28:22 - 31:52]

• Devin shares his “five non-negotiables”: Family, health, community, freedom of time, and giving back.
  • “If a person, place, or thing isn’t adding value...they’re taking value from you.” (Devin, 28:50)
  • Uses calendar “red X/green X” method to physically see and remove what doesn’t fit his values.
• On Regret & Wisdom: Both Jesse and Devin emphasize seeking wisdom from elders and listening to those who’ve lived long, full lives—those most often regret wasted time, not spent time.

6. Scheduling Around Self-Care

[33:29 - 36:08]

• Gary shares scheduling sleep and workouts first before work, a change that transformed his energy, focus, and presence for family.
  • “The idea that you could be selfish in the morning and then give the rest of your day away... that made a lot of sense to me.” (Gary, 34:00)

7. The Power of Silence and Detox

[35:31 - 37:05]

• The group discusses the value of moments of silence—especially in the sauna—as well as digital detoxes (e.g., the Hoffman Institute, no-phones retreats).
  • “Three minutes silence... you just hear yourself breathing, and life just starts to make sense a little bit.” (Devin, 35:32)

8. Building Winning Habits & Joyful Routines

[39:11 - 40:07]

• Jesse: List your daily “vitamins”—activities that make you feel good. Strive to check 2–3 of these boxes daily before giving yourself to others.
  • “If my work is taking all that stuff away, I’ll resent work... If my wife says, 'we’re going to the opera,' but I get my cold plunge in, I’m happy to go!” (Jesse, 39:12)

9. Unconventional Business Success Stories

[41:35 - 46:46]

• The Muffin Story: Jesse, lacking access to a wealthy crowd at a TED event, buys all the muffins at a local shop. Offering one to an attendee leads to his first Marquee Jet customer and, via over-delivering on service, cascades into $5 billion in sales.
  • “Your secret weapon is caring the most. I cared so much about this guy’s experience... He gave me a referral, and the next guy gave me a referral, until we did $5 billion worth of referrals and sales.” (Jesse, 45:43)

10. Intentional Product Building & Passion

[47:25 - 51:13]

• Devin shares the founding philosophy behind Promix (and now Sweet Honey Farms): unwavering commitment to quality, transparency, and caring about every detail for the customer.

11. The “Spiritual Billionaire”

[51:16 - 57:24]

• Jesse introduces the concept: True wealth is about spirit—enthusiasm, kindness, adventure—not only money.
  • “If you have a billion dollars but your spirit is zero, a billion times zero is zero. But if you just have $1, but your spirit is a billion, a dollar times a billion is a billion.” (Jesse, 56:12)
  • The “million dollar” habits—enthusiasm, care, positivity—are free, not taught in school.

12. A Blueprint for Life Design

[58:04 - 63:00]

• Jesse's Practical Formula:
  • Do one year-defining (“misogi”) thing annually
  • Schedule six mini-adventures (one every two months)
  • Add one new “winning habit” per quarter (e.g., drink more water, meditate 10 mins daily)
  • Over five years, this compounds into hundreds of meaningful experiences and habits.

13. On Decision Making & Simplifying Life

[63:06 - 77:08]

• Devin: “The human makes on average 250,000 decisions per week.” Surrounding yourself with “yes, and” people and seeking new experiences expands your options and sharpens intentional choices.
• Jesse’s Approach to Simplicity: Each year, he donates what he doesn’t use, unsubscribes from emails, and removes clutter—“I want to walk around feeling as light as I can. Physically light, time light, people-wise light. I want to be light, man.” (Jesse, 77:08)

14. Ultimate Human: Final Reflections

[77:44 - End]

• Devin: To be an ultimate human is “comparing myself right now to the guy I was yesterday... Was I a better person than I was before? In every aspect: brain, spiritually, physically.” (Devin, 79:00)
• Jesse: “Being as good as you can be in the buckets that matter most to you... And then, squeeze as much out of life as I can... I want to die young as late as I possibly can.” (Jesse, 80:44)
• Gary: Resonates with the idea—“I want to die young as late as possible.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jesse Itzler on intentional experiences:
  “If you don’t have one thing to show for your year, your work life balance is so out of whack.” (05:31)

• On creating bonds:
  “One adventure is like 10 years of sitting at a cubicle. You can learn more. I only knew one of the 10 guys 10 years ago, so it’s like a whole new friend group has emerged.” (Jesse, 14:29)

• On simplifying your life:
  “When you can downsize to figuring out what it is you love to do, the people you love to do it with, and you do more of that, that’s a great journey.” (Jesse, 22:48)

• On regret:
  “Every single person, the common denominator is regretting what they did with their time, not maximizing it.” (Devin, 31:52)

• On building habits:
  “List your daily vitamins—what makes you feel good. Check two or three boxes daily, then give the rest of your day away.” (Jesse, 39:11)

• On the “spiritual billionaire”:
  “If you have a billion dollars but your spirit is zero, a billion times zero is zero... But if you just have a dollar, and your spirit is a billion... A dollar times a billion is a billion.” (Jesse, 56:12)

• On life design blueprint:
  “One big thing, six mini adventures. Every quarter, add one winning habit to your life... Now you have 30 new adventures you would have had and 20 new winning habits. That process will ripple into your whole life.” (Jesse, 59:12)

• On ultimate human:
  “Being as good as you can be in the buckets that matter most to you... I want to die young as late as I possibly can.” (Jesse, 80:44)

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Recommended Timestamps for Important Segments

• On The Misogi and Life Design: 05:11–07:47
• Jesse & Devin’s Epic Meeting Story: 08:05–10:17
• The Power of Scheduling Adventures First: 12:01–13:15
• Jesse on Living With David Goggins: 18:39–19:25
• Devin’s Five Non-Negotiable Values: 28:22–29:48
• Habit-Building and Selfish Mornings: 33:29–36:08
• Jesse’s Muffin Story (Marquee Jet’s First Customer): 44:00–46:33
• Explaining the ‘Spiritual Billionaire’: 56:12–57:12
• Jesse’s Blueprint for Life Design: 58:04–60:33
• Ultimate Human Definitions: 77:44–80:44

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Episode Takeaways

• Design your year: Intentionally schedule major and mini-adventures before work and obligations.
• System beats time: People don’t lack time, they lack a system.
• Curate experiences: Stack newness, adventure, and connections for a richer, more meaningful life.
• Simplicity wins: Clarity, focus, and happiness come from simplifying possessions, commitments, and relationships.
• Spirit trumps money: True wealth comes from positivity, enthusiasm, kindness, and living aligned to personal values.
• Continuous improvement: The ultimate human is someone who strives to be just a little better than yesterday—in the areas that matter most.

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In Their Words: Notable Final Quotes

• “I want to die young as late as I possibly can.”
• “Being as good as you can be in the buckets that matter most to you.”
• “Don’t live the 80% version of yourself.”
• “People aren’t lacking time, they’re lacking a system.”

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For listeners: this episode delivers practical, heartfelt strategies for living with adventure, designing meaningful routines, and cultivating a fulfilled, purposeful life—no matter your age or starting point.

Transcript

[Jesse Itzler]

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. Like, you don't have one thing to show for your year, like your work life balance is so out of whack.

[Gary Brecker]

You're never, like, counting the accomplishments. You're stacking up the adventure of life.

[Jesse Itzler]

You bond so much more with people through experiences than you do sitting at a cubicle.

[Gary Brecker]

The reason why you have so much wisdom is because you had these different experiences and you didn't just let them pass through your life. You said, what can I learn from this?

[Devin Levesque]

Why don't you go talk to someone that's 100 years old and just go listen to them? And every single single person, the common denominator is regretting what they did with their time, not maximizing it.

[Jesse Itzler]

People aren't lacking time, they're lacking a system.

[Gary Brecker]

What is the life design that I can go through to make sure that I bring some of this back into my life?

[Jesse Itzler]

Don't change anything. But you just layered in these three things. One.

[Devin Levesque]

Ultimate human.

[Gary Brecker]

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecker, where we go down the road of everything. Anti aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. Today is definitely one of those in between podcasts. I gotta actually set this up before we even start running the podcast. So every morning I work out with my son Cole, our dad drive over to his house about a mile away, we run a workout, and then I come back home. So Devin Levesque joined us this morning for the workout. And I'm talking to Devin, he's like, what do you got on calendar today? And I'm like, oh, I'm running a podcast with Jesse Itzler, dude, I can't wait. This guy changed my life. And he's like, wait, that's my guy, dude. That's my boy. You know that Jesse and I are boys. And I was like, well, why don't you come over? So when I. When Jesse got here and he did the tour of the house, I actually had Devin sitting in the podcast seat. And he came around the room into the podcast studio from freaked out. So this is going to be one of my first triplet podcasts. It's a. It's a three camera shoot today, guys. Jesse Itzler, Devin Levesque, welcome to the Ultimate Human podcast.

[Jesse Itzler]

It's great to be here. Does everybody, does the audience know that you shoot this at your house?

[Gary Brecker]

They do now, yeah. It's at my house. Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

And I just want to say, I walked in here, my cells are freaking out. It's like the air quality in this place is on another level.

[Gary Brecker]

He's like, I want to see everything. I'm like, all right, let's take the tour. We showed a water filtration. Filtration. We had a little meeting in the hyperbaric today. We'll probably hit the sauna before you leave, because Devon told me that your priorities are sauna than everything else. And I was like, all right, well, I got that covered. You know, I. I got to tell you, Jesse, truthfully, the. The. I've had hundreds of people on my podcast. I can count on one hand the number of people that I could say have truly had an impact on my life, and I really mean that. I've been inspired by all of my podcast guests. They tell amazing stories. They're some of the most impactful people in the world. I don't mean to take anything away from them, but people whose advice I've actually applied in my life that haven't made a material change in my life, and you are absolutely one of those five people. I remember a podcast that you did. You must have been around 50, because you were talking about how you had 28 years, statistically speaking, to age 78, right. You're like, I've got 28 summers left. I'm. I'm actually getting goosebumps saying this. And I started thinking about 28 summers with my parents, 28 summers with my kids, 28 summers with my wife. What am I doing? Like, where is. Where is my head?

[Jesse Itzler]

Like, what.

[Gary Brecker]

Look at. Look at the goosebumps.

[Jesse Itzler]

I don't know if the camera can.

[Gary Brecker]

See that, but that podcast was so meaningful. I forget to host that. Had you on there, and then I saw you speak at a growth con right up the street here in Marlin Stadium. There's 35, 000 people in Marlin Stadium. I don't even think your book had come out yet. But you were talking about living with the CEO.

[Jesse Itzler]

That's right.

[Gary Brecker]

And, dude, your energy and you like your communication style. And I was like, I don't know where this guy is from, but I believe every word that's coming out of his mouth because you were just speaking with such conviction and those two things. Married. And I have to tell you, I made some material shifts in. In the priority of my life thanks to you. So I really. I want to just start off by saying thank you.

[Jesse Itzler]

Oh, man. Thank you so much. You're an honor to be here.

[Gary Brecker]

You're amazing. You're an amazing orator, and. And you're really making a big impact in the world, and I'm absolutely honored to have you on the podcast today. And you too, brother. And. And I'll get to you in a second. But there's so many. There's so many things that we could go down the rabbit hole of. There's so many things I love about your message, and I. I don't want to take words out of your mouth, but this life design, you know, and you're never, like, counting the accomplishments. It seems to me like you're. You're stacking up the adventure of life, like, you're really enjoying the journey. And I wonder if you would talk about that a little bit. Like, from the genesis, you had so many of these amazing stories. You do these things called masogis. Am I saying that right? Yeah, masogis. So maybe we just start there, like, because people rarely get advice on how to design their life.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, I think it's super important. I think as you get older. I'm 57 years old, but I found that as you get older, it's really hard to create newness. So many of us live in routine, you know, and our routine is very often dictated by other people. Zoom calls. You know, your calendar fills up with other people's requests for your time.

[Gary Brecker]

And.

[Jesse Itzler]

And where does newness come from? You know, And I feel like really, you have to create it yourself. Like, you have to plan it and schedule it and think about it. So I'm really, really intentional about planning and thinking of ways that I can create newness. So there's an old Japanese ritual called the misogi, for example, and the notion around the misogy is you do one big year defining thing. And every year, like, like as we head into 2026, like last year, 2025, like, you want to have one. If you don't have one thing to show for your year, like, your work life balance is so out of whack. Right? So I can go back all the way to 20 forever and be like, 2015, I wrote Living with a Seal. 2022, I rode my bike across America. 2020. Every year I try to have one big year defining thing. So that's like a. Something that I always do. And then we talk about living by design. I. I don't do a lot. You don't have to do a lot to get me to get a ripple effect in your life. But that is something that I do every Year. And then the other thing that I like to do is every other month I call it Kevin's rule. I named it after my friend Kevin, who introduced me this. Every other month I do one little mini adventure I plan intentionally a mini adventure that I normally wouldn't have had. So instead of watching the Georgia football game on a Saturday, I'll go fishing with my kids, I'll go to a lecture or whatever. I just do six mini adventures a year. Now here's the why that's important. You had mentioned the average American lives to be 78. So when I was 50, let's say I lived to 80, I had 30, let's say I had 30 more years left. If I did one misogy, one year defining thing and took six mini adventures in just those 30 years, yeah, I'd have 30 year defining things and 180 mini adventures I wouldn't have had. So when you start to stack, that's freaking amazing. That is amazing. You start that at your son's age, you're going to have 400 mini adventures and 50, you know, so without that, I don't want to look back at the end of my journey and be like, yes, man, I was the 80% version of myself. You know, like, I want to squeeze as much out of this insane opportunity that we have if we're healthy.

[Devin Levesque]

Right.

[Jesse Itzler]

You know, there's a famous quote. If you have health, you have hope. If you have hope, you have everything. So I want to squeeze as much out of the journey as I can. So that starts with having a plan and being intentional about it. It doesn't just happen.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. And, and, and I've got to ask, how did the two of you meet? You and you and Devin?

[Devin Levesque]

29029. Yeah. You know that, that was 1 09. Yeah, 29029.

[Jesse Itzler]

At an event, an event called 29 or 29.

[Devin Levesque]

Oh, where you climbed the height of Mount Everest in 36 hours.

[Gary Brecker]

Okay. He was just telling my wife about this.

[Devin Levesque]

And so we were, we were actually. It was out in Idaho. He lives in Atlanta. And we're, we were one of the sponsors for the event. And I remember I showed up and the year prior I bear crawled the New York City Marathon. And I saw that he texted me about it. And so we kind of knew each other through the Internet. And so I get to the event, he texts me, he's like, yo, you want to, you want to go and hit some hot springs tonight? And so I met him, you know, the night before the race. And the next morning we start the race, it's 15 laps up and down the mountain, dude.

[Gary Brecker]

And by the way, this is from, like, 8,000ft to, like, 10,000ft, back to 8,000ft, back to 10,000ft.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah. We're in Sun Valley, Idaho. It takes about two hours to go up, gondola down, nine minutes, four laps in. Jesse texts me and he's like, yo, meet me at the lodge. I'm like, all right. Meet him at the lodge. He's like, you know, I'm a part owner of the Hawks, and, you know, it's playoffs tonight in Atlanta. I think if we go to the game, we might be able to come back and still finish the race. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, let's get in the plane. So we get in the plane with a couple of our buddies, we fly to the gate.

[Gary Brecker]

So you've already done four laps on the hill.

[Devin Levesque]

I have, like, mud on my boots.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

I just met this guy. I did three.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Little behind.

[Devin Levesque]

I just met this guy. Like, 10 hours in, we fly to Atlanta, walk in. I'm just. I'm still in mud in my boots. He's like, yo, go to the. Go to the bar. Grab somewhere in the owner's lounge. He's like, go to the bar. Grab some tequila shots. I go up to the bar, start ordering some shots. We're starting to have a good time. This guy walks up, he's like, can you get me some more? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, what's your name? He's like, meek. And I'm like, meek Milch.

[Jesse Itzler]

He's like, meek Mill?

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah. I'm like, what is going on right now?

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Devin Levesque]

Like, all these people start walking, up we go, we watch the game. They lose, and I'll never forget it. Jesse looks at me, goes back on the plane. Yeah. We get back on the plane, we fly back to Idaho. Now we gain three hours. We get back to the mountain by about 3am we have 11 laps left. We finished the whole race.

[Gary Brecker]

Hold on. You started at 3:00am yeah, started at.

[Devin Levesque]

3:00Amel we finished the whole race with 30 minutes to spare. And that was the first 36 hours I ever met Jesse, by the way.

[Jesse Itzler]

Since that encounter, Devin and I have rode our bike across America. We did a tour of the 30 best saunas in the world.

[Gary Brecker]

That was wild. He told me about.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, we've run marathons together. Did rim to rim to rim at the Grand Canyon. Like, we've just set, like, just on all different. Yeah. Different soggies. And adventures.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah. And he's, I mean, you know, obviously I look at Jesse, we're in different age, 25 years AP.

[Jesse Itzler]

Not since I walked into your house. Gary, I came in here, he took pictures of everything.

[Gary Brecker]

I have a feeling you and Sarah are about to upgrade over.

[Devin Levesque]

Oh yeah. And I mean, I look at him and I, A lot of the times I'm just a sponge, you know, I'm trying to just take it all in. I'm, I, you know, I grew up respecting my elders and we might have the same energy, you know, but we're different ages. And so I still look at him as, you know, mentor, an elder, you know, we might be business partners and friends, but like, I take a lot of the things he says pretty seriously and I think maximizing your time. And ever since, honestly that time I met him at, at 29029, I've added a musogi, you know, climbing Mount Everest, you know, bear crawling, a marathon, you know, going out to all these different high peaks in Antarctica and across the world. Like it is a massive part of my life. And using the big ass calendar to set my calendar first of what, what adventures I want, you know, I do two, three year, like big, big, you know, life defining adventures. That's 50, 50 chance I complete it or not. And it's, it's really because of Jess that I'm, that I'm adding this into my calendar. But this, this has allowed me to schedule my life out and then everything else fits in between.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. And this works most, this is one of the biggest, most incredible things that Jesse gave us right there. So we started this this year, the big ass calendar this year. And, and so for Christmas.

[Jesse Itzler]

Beautiful, by the way, doesn't it? Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

And there's no work on here yet, so, so we scheduled things by family, our family time, our time in Colorado. That's our, that's our time together out in Colorado. We have a log home out there. We love holidays, birthdays, and then work. And so I'm going to hand this over to my staff and let them fill in the rest of this calendar. But this is the first time that we've ever done this. And when I, when, when I talk about what an impact you've made on our lives, I mean, you really have. My wife loves this idea. I love this idea. I've been so much more intentional about my time with my kids, have been blessed to have them involved in my, in my, in my. I'm working out with my son every morning. My daughter and I Have chemical free skincare line. My youngest is starting chemical free activewear and just bringing them closer and then making them a part of this adventure.

[Jesse Itzler]

What I love about that is, you know, you have all 365 days on one piece of paper, but you can a track towards your goals. You can see where you have gaps in your time. You can literally see where you're spending time and not spending time, what you're neglecting, what you're not, you know, doing right. And, you know, it's, it's. It gives you a visual. I see things in pictures. I'm super visual. And it just gives you a really clear picture of your whole year on one piece of paper.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

And that's been really, really effective for me. Just to go back to one thing that Devin said that I think. Super interesting. You know, we've done all these adventures and, you know, I feel like there's two sides to business. You know, there's the financial side, which is so important, but then there's a really strong spiritual side. You know, not just in the culture that you create and how you treat your customers, but also like, are you incorporating adventure and living a life on top of the grind, you know, and there's a million insane entrepreneurs in the world. I don't, I. I'm an entrepreneur and I probably back of the pack in entrepreneurship.

[Gary Brecker]

I wouldn't say dude, but you've exited $5 billion in companies.

[Jesse Itzler]

But there's a lot of people that.

[Gary Brecker]

I wouldn't call that back of the back.

[Jesse Itzler]

There's a lot of people that are better, but. But I've done a really good job in living my life and by design. And, you know, Dev and I have been on these adventures, but we've been going with a group of 10 friends. We, we all do these same things kind of every year. The same group to Finland, the same group that rode their bike, basically. And what's interesting about that, as. And I never thought about this in my 30s, but in my 50s, all of the 10 guys that do these journeys together, we become super close. You bond so much more with people through experiences than you do sitting at a cubicle at work.

[Gary Brecker]

So true.

[Jesse Itzler]

So, you know, one adventure is like 10 years of sitting at a cubicle. You can learn more. I only knew one of the 10 guys 10 years ago, so it's like a whole new friend group has emerged. And I thought in my 50s, like, oh, my good years are done. You know, like, in my 30s, I ran marathons, I went out, I had all my friends And I got married. Now I'm supposed to slow down. I have four children. It's been the opposite. It's like I feel so alive in my 50s 1. Surrounding myself with people that think young, do young, act young. I mean, you're the king of biohacking and longevity and wellness. I mean, I came in here was like, you're the Willy Wonka of the space man. Like, this is like Disneyland for. Well, I mean, seriously, I feel like I walk through a cloud of like, wellness when I walk in the hydrogen water.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, we're firing up hydrogen water right now.

[Jesse Itzler]

And all the things that you do are so important. And I took pictures of everything. I've already on Amazon. I'm ordering everything.

[Gary Brecker]

He's like, I can't order fast enough.

[Jesse Itzler]

But thinking young, thinking young, staying young by being around young energy. I mean, Dev just said he's been around. Looks at me as like an elder, which is a compliment and an insult.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, yeah. I felt the bar. I was like, oh.

[Jesse Itzler]

But the same can be said about me. I mean, Devin brings to me a newness, an energy, a youthfulness, play fun. All the things that start to go downhill for a lot of people in their 50s, 60s and 70s. So surrounding yourself, adventure. And you don't have to go climb Mount Everest. People that are young, you know, there's an old. And I think this is a big part of what you do. We were talking about this earlier that like community and this kind of thing. But there's an old trait or trend or hack in stand up comedy that when people go around and they pass something, a story to story, an improv, improv comedy, when they pass it to the next person, the comedian starts by saying, yes. And that end. Yes. And then we went, you know, because it keeps the momentum and it keeps the energy. And I want to be around. Yes. And people. I don't want to be around people that say to me, you're going to go climb Mount Everest in a mountain like for 36 hours. Why would you want to do that? You want to go to Finland? I don't want to be around that.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, you could twist your ankle. You could get really hurt.

[Jesse Itzler]

I want to be around people that give yes. And energy and I want to be that.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

Devin says he wants to go bear crawl, the marathon. I'm like, yes.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

And go crush that man. That's amazing.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

I'm not going to take that energy away from him. So the relationship that we have, it's energy based, man. Like, and all my friends, like, I'm on friend reduction right now.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, same.

[Jesse Itzler]

I'm on friend reduction.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

And I'm bringing in people that give me the energy and getting rid of the people that take it away.

[Gary Brecker]

If you know me, you know I'm a huge believer in the benefits of hydrogen water. H2TAB delivers cost effective portable tablets that generate ultra clean molecular hydrogen at 12 parts per million, one of the highest concentrations on the market. With over 1300 published studies showing benefits of oxidative stress, energy recovery, brain function, and so much more, taking charge of your health has never been easier or more cost effective. Just drop a tablet in water, let it dissolve and drink it back. It's less than a dollar a day, science backed, and part of my daily routine. I never travel without this and it is my favorite biohack. Visit drinkh2tab.com that's drinkh2tab.com and upgrade your hydration today. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Yeah. And over your life, if we just went back a little bit to the, the financial wins and some of the business wins, I, I feel like you've had such an unconventional past. I don't even know how to really describe it. I mean, 50 Cent was an intern for you.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yes.

[Gary Brecker]

I mean, David Goggins lived with you, the book says 30 days, but he lived you for a lot longer, right?

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

He was security for your family, correct? Almost seven years.

[Jesse Itzler]

That's right.

[Gary Brecker]

And like, did you like take something away from each of those people? I mean, for those that haven't read the book, like, what was it that struck you? Because I feel like you are the combination of all of these experience. The reason why you have so much wisdom and, and you're able to orate this in such a constructive way that people can apply to their life is because you had these different experiences and you didn't just let them pass through your life. You sort of, you said, what can I learn from this? Like, what am I taking away from having this hyper disciplined Navy SEAL live with me? And then I'm gonna actually add some of those discipline characteristics to my life. Like, what was it like living with David Goggins for seven years?

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah. Well, Gandhi said it best. He said, learn like you'll live forever and live like you'll die tomorrow. And that's sort of been the way I've been living my life since I've been 20. My wife always says, the more you experience, the more you have to offer. And I have completely over indexed in experiences. So, you know, you Mentioned that Goggins lived with us. He did. I lived on a monastery with eight monks that have been there for 50 years. I live with Wim Hof in Poland for a week. I've had, you know, I've just had all these different experiences and I feel like I have a lot to offer through that. And you know, the, you're told to like surround yourself with like minded people. And that's true, we're like minded. But I'm into people that aren't like me, that are experts like you in this field that I'm curious about. And I learned best through immersion, not through reading. So I like to put myself in those situations to learn. I met Goggins at a race in 2006 and no Internet, no, no one knew who he was. You know, he was running this race. He was probably 280 pounds at the time. It was a 24 hour race. I was with a team of five. We were a relay group of five people. He had no relay team. He was his own relay team. He did it by himself. And he had ended up breaking a lot of the bones in his feet because he weighed so much over the course of running this race. Just the pressure. And he only had crackers and water. It was a bring your own supplies. He brought a box of crackers and a bottle of water and he ended up getting some kind of kidney issue. He's peeing blood down his leg at mile 70. And I was like, Geez, we gotta airlift Mr. Race Director. Like airlift this guy to a hospital immediately. Yeah, he duct taped his feet and then ran another 30 miles and finished the hundred miles that he wanted. And I was like, I want to meet this guy. Because whatever secret sauce he has, if any of that could rub off on me or my children, like every bucket of my life would be better. So I literally cold called him, flew out there and realized we had a quick lunch meeting. I'm not going to get the secret sauce over lunch. Lasting change requires changing habits, mindset and routines. You don't get that at lunch. I asked him to come live with us and he did. And that started a relationship. And you know, there were so many takeaways from, from that. And I would just say that one of the things, and this is going to sound unusual for like, oh, Goggins, live with you. And this is a takeaway, but I love the simplicity of how he lived his life. Forget the training and the mindset. I got all that now. I didn't want to get rid of my swimming pool Right. You know, I still wanted my swimming pool. But what do people do when they get older? They downsize.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

They get rid of like I don't. I'm not seeing 80 year olds buying huge mansions. They're downsizing and simplifying and whatever. I feel like there's so much ego in business. There's so much ego in business. And I feel like the earlier you can simplify and dev, it does a great job. He does the best example of this for someone in his 30s that I know.

[Gary Brecker]

I want to talk about Sweet Honey Farms Promix.

[Jesse Itzler]

He's the best example of this of anyone I know in their 30s. But when you can downsize to like figuring out what it is you love to do, the people you love to do it with and you do more of that, that's a great journey. And I. He knew what he loved to do and he did a lot of that. So when I turned 50, I said I'm gonna put more on my plate. What I love to do with the people, I love to do them with.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

That's why we're doing all these adventures and stuff. So that was a really impactful takeaway for me. And then each one of these little things journeys, people that I've met. Even my experience with you, I mean I've taken, I've, I've been here for an hour. I've taken so much away. One of it is the how you invest so much in your children. Yeah. Getting up in the morning, starting your day, working out with your kids. You told me you never missed a game when they were playing sports.

[Gary Brecker]

Not one.

[Jesse Itzler]

This is the stuff the world needs to hear, man. Like this is the things that. I think the message gets lost when people are like business, business, business, business. I mean, no shit. Yeah. You have to go to fucking Harvard to learn that you have to be good at, you know, work hard. Like no shit. But it's the other side of that message now. I'll leave, I'll just say one thing really quickly that I. And then, and then, you know, I don't want to hog this conversation, but I hired a speed coach that I found online from my son.

[Gary Brecker]

Speed. Speed.

[Jesse Itzler]

To get faster.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

So I called the guy up. I don't even know if you know this Dev. And he's booked out for six weeks. I wanted a 45 minute session. Six weeks. I can come in six weeks. Six weeks later he comes up in this book, like kind of beat up pickup truck. He's got like old school gym cones. He puts out they go through this workout. And I said to him, I said, wow, man, you must be so busy, like, six weeks to get a session. He goes off, I'm not busy at all. I said, what are you talking about?

[Devin Levesque]

He's.

[Jesse Itzler]

I was on a fishing trip. What are you talking about? He goes, I'm not busy by design. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, like, I realized if I give these sessions all the time, I'm gonna have no time for myself. So I started doing online courses, selling the online courses so I could design this life where I could go fishing. And I'm just here because I like following you on Instagram. I thought it'd be cool to train your son. And I was like, I want my life by design.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

I want to do that by design. You know what I mean?

[Gary Brecker]

So true.

[Jesse Itzler]

That's the calendar, and that's these trips, and that's the misogi, and that's Kevin's rule. People aren't lacking time. People like, oh, I don't have enough time. They're like. They're lacking a system.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

And if you can get a system, then you start to really. It starts to really click. And I'm not saying don't work, obviously, if the work, but you want to make sure that you have that kind of balance and this is all part of what you do and talk about, but on a different. The different side of it.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

Not the supplements, not the eating, not the sleeping community. It's the community. The connection and thinking. Feeling good about yourself.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

Devin does it better than anyone. I mean, he's the happiest guy I know.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, he is a happy dude. Dude, He's. He was firing us up during the workout this morning. I'll tell you a really funny story. So we all. We all come back from this intense workout, and we're getting ready to get in the sauna. We. We make this farm to table breakfast, and my daughter Zoom calls me, and so I. An. I answer the Zoom call, and I'm. Or FaceTimes me. And I'm. I. I've got it on the counter. So I'm. It's Zach Efron. And him and I are sitting there and we're having breakfast, and she's like. She sees that Devin's there, and she's like, oh, yeah, I took your. I took your probiotics this morning. I'm like, wait, what? You take his probiotics? And she's like, yeah, and I eat his protein bars, dad. And. And I. And I she started talking about sweet honey farms. Like, I'm like, dude, you're like, you're like a spokesperson for Devin Levesque. Remember that? Yeah. The blood test. And then, and then, you know, I'm making eggs this morning, Devin slaps his blood test on me. This little, it was like a constant glucose monitor called rhythm. And, and I start dripping blood into this little vial. And by the time I was done making eggs, I had a vial of blood. And I guess we're going to send it to the lab and check my hormones. And I was like, dude, this is really cool. I didn't realize that you had had such a, the result on my kid.

[Jesse Itzler]

The results of that blood work. It's going to be a buffalo.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, we don't do this on animals.

[Jesse Itzler]

This is the blood test on a wild buffalo.

[Devin Levesque]

You're insane.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, I actually can't wait for those. But I, at your age, I, I love what you're doing because like these sweet honey farms, you know, these, these micro farms where you're, you're, you're growing your own food, you're actually providing farm to table food for people. Place where they can take their shoes off, touch the soil, put their hands in dirt, eat vegetables right out of the garden. I'm sorry about what happened to you in New York with the, you know, the, the, the raw milk. We're trying to change that at Maha right now. You know, it's, it's funny because he got whacked and fined for, for selling raw milk and giving raw milk to, to people and, and you know, all these chemical companies get a pass. But I would love if you would talk a little bit about the, you know, your life design at, at 30. Because I think the younger generation, we're kind of supposed to be wise in our 50s, right? We take all of our mistakes and we sort of look back. The fact that both of you started so early designing your life, I mean, I'm truly a, a little jealous. You know, I'm, I'm intentional with my time with my kids now. Very intentional with my time with them. And it's a blessing to have them in this circle. But talk a little bit about your life design and.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah, I think, I think when I was 20, I'm 33, so I was, I was 26 and I was on the phone with this guy, Johnny Martin, who was, you know, he, he, he helps a lot of veterans design their life. And I called him up. I'm like, I feel really stressed. You know, there was, there was a lot of opportunity coming into my life. My schedule was getting overtaken. And he was like, he's like, what do you care about? Like, what are five things that are your absolute no matter what?

[Gary Brecker]

And you were personal trainer around this time?

[Devin Levesque]

I was a. Yeah, I had a training business. I just sold it. And yeah, we. We must have just started Promix at the time. And. And so he gave me a couple days. I think it was a week. And I come back and I'm like, the five things that are my no matter what's in Life. I had $20 billion in my bank account. Everything, like, what am I? No matter what? Family, health, community, freedom of time and giving back. Philanthropy. Like, I love giving back. And he's like, okay, he's like, write this sentence on your whiteboard. And so I had a big whiteboard and I have all these companies I'm a part of and, you know, you know, all the things on my schedule and whatever. He's like, if a person, place, or thing isn't adding value to your life from a community, family, health, giving back standpoint, then they're taking value from you. And so I look at my calendar, like, you know, my daily calendar, and I took a red marker and a green marker and everything that didn't have to do with family, health, community, freedom of time and giving back.

[Gary Brecker]

Right.

[Devin Levesque]

Freedom of time. A little different, but mainly those four. Then I put a red X on it, and I immediately looked at my calendar and, like, half my day was gone. And I'm like, wow, like, none of this shit really matters. And I was like, cool. And so then going forward, I don't, like, I'm not kidding. I don't care what the opportunity is. If it does not hit on one of my values, then I'm not. I'm just not doing it. And like, look, I get a lot of really cool opportunities to be in good rooms with people, make a lot of money, do. Do something that people would dream of doing. If it does not hit on family, health, community, freedom of time, or giving back, I'm just simply not doing it. And, like, I'm that stubborn. I was really bad in school because I was really stubborn. I hate sitting down. I just. I hated it. Like, I am so stubborn on those five things.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Devin Levesque]

And. And that's. That's what, honestly, the calendar also helps me with because I list out all the things I want to do and then I give my team the calendar and then they fill in the rest. And like, if it does not hit on one of those five I'm just simply not doing it. I also have another rule. If Jesse calls me and says, hey, be here at, you know, wherever I'm. I'm there. It's an automatic thing.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. I'm in the adventure.

[Devin Levesque]

Like, I'm in it.

[Jesse Itzler]

And.

[Devin Levesque]

And I don't know. I think. I think it's important also just to go back to respecting elders. I've been able to spend a lot of time, you know, in. In these deep villages of Africa and at crazy tables in Antarctica and, you know, with, you know, with the monks on Everest in Nepal, and, like, just, like, really deep conversations, and I just listen. You know, I. I think a lot of. There's so much motivation out in the world and there's so much inspiring and all these business talks, but, like, why don't you go talk to someone that's 80, 90, 100 years old, 105, that spent time just living their life through different wars, through different economy shifts, and just go listen to them? And every single person, the common denominator is regretting what they did with their time, not maximizing it. And so, like, yeah, I might be 33, and I might have a couple more summers than you guys left, but it's still the time that I took to talk right now, and you guys listening and everyone else listening. You're never getting that time back.

[Gary Brecker]

No.

[Devin Levesque]

Ever. Yeah, it's gone. That two minutes is gone. See you later. You're never gonna get it back. And so, like, that's what I mean by being intentional. Like, really, really intentional.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

One of the big things that I always do is if I find a couple or family that has children that are, like, in college or graduated college, I'll ask them all the same question. Because I have four kids, and they're 16, 11, 11 and 10. I'll say, what would you have done differently raising your kids? Would you have traveled more? Would you have homeschooled them? Would you have played less sports? Would you not over schedule them? Like, what I want to. And I ask them all the same question. And because I don't want to have any of those regrets, I want to know what they regret so I can prevent it. And, you know, to Deb's point, like, asking questions are really important. And I love what you did with the energy. Like, we only have a certain amount of energy. You don't have unlimited energy. So it's like deciding, where do you want to put your energy? What do you want to put your energy into in 2026? Like, where do you Want to put the majority of your energy, is it into your marriage? Is it into your children? Is into your business? Is it into your wellness and health? Isn't into learning. But I think that's really important, like having direction, you know, like, nobody listening to this podcast is good enough to wake up and wing it. The competition's too good. You can't just wake up and be like, I don't know, I'm just gonna wing it this year. It doesn't work like that. So, like, you taking a little time to map out your year, thinking about what you want to do or the trips or like, you know, how much time you want to spend with your kids or whatever, it's really, really important.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

You know, I, I made a change six years ago. I started to. It was a relatively small change, but I would say it's amplified it itself. And as I look back, as probably one of the greatest decisions I ever made. And I started scheduling all of my meetings and travel around sleep and exercise. So I said, first thing that goes on my calendar is sleep, then exercise, and then everything else fills in. This is even before I had the big ass calendar and that shift alone. Because the idea that you could be selfish in the morning and then give the rest of your day away.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

And, and that made a lot of sense to me. What I would do is just wake up and start giving my day away. And by giving my day away, I mean my spouse, my career, my kids, my, you know, my co workers, whatever it was. And it's easy to just be busy, so. Right. It's easy to doom scroll. I mean, there's so much that we can just fill our calendar with. And that, that shift, like, it wasn't just a mind shift, mindset shift. It like gave me focus, energy. I started to see things really clearly because in that 90 minutes, I always have some quiet space. And it was really, really, really hard for me. I've had ADHD all my life. It was really hard for me to sit in silence. So I actually set a goal of like, trying to teach myself to just sit in silence. And like, some of the greatest ideas like problem solving has come to me during that time. And now I feel like I've been so much more efficient just because I'm just selfish with just the first 90 minutes. And so he joined me this, you know, this morning.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, I love it.

[Gary Brecker]

I mean, I'll, I'll miss just about anything. I'll be late to a meeting, but I will never be late for a workout with my Son. Yeah. You know, I'm just never going to.

[Devin Levesque]

I think that's why we, you know, why I, and I know you sana sana. And cold plunge on the. I mean I'm, I'm an everyday guy, you know, three rounds, 15 minutes in, you know, dunk in the cold, go back in minimum three innings.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Devin Levesque]

And I think in that time Jesse does something great. I love when he does this in the sauna. There might be five, 10 people in the sauna. And he goes. Yeah. Let's take a moment of silence real quick. Three minutes silence.

[Jesse Itzler]

Sauna is the best.

[Devin Levesque]

The best.

[Gary Brecker]

Dude.

[Devin Levesque]

I love that there's no talking and you're thoughts just come together. You hear yourself breathing and like life just starts to make sense a little bit. You know, it's super quiet in there and look, I, I love a good conversation but we, you know, we can do that afterwards. Right? Just sitting there and letting the thoughts. That's why I love being on the mountains. You know what I mean? Like there's no social media. You're out there, you might not be talking for you know, an hour, two hours. You're just, you're just climbing. Right. And yeah, that's where the ideas come and that's where your brain starts to make sense. Everyone talks about a detox and you do great detoxes. Do a phone detox. Don't go, don't go to your.

[Jesse Itzler]

Don't.

[Devin Levesque]

Don't have a phone for 10 days. See what happens if you don't. His wife and I did a. It's called the Hoffman Institute. We don't have our phones for seven days. It's an intense therapy, like you know, sessions in the middle of freaking nowhere.

[Gary Brecker]

I noticed it was him and your wife. You didn't go on that one? No.

[Jesse Itzler]

They didn't go again?

[Devin Levesque]

No, we didn't go again.

[Gary Brecker]

Okay.

[Devin Levesque]

And yeah, they take your phone away and like it's really insane what happens when you don't have your phone for seven days and you're just, you're just writing and you're not allowed to work out, you're not allowed to. You know, sometimes you don't even talk to people throughout the day and it, your brain just starts to make sense.

[Jesse Itzler]

More just by the non workout. Things are not. It's a non starter for me.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have to talk about my feelings.

[Devin Levesque]

You got to lean into it. But no phone. I love the no phone detox.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

My wife Sarah explained the Hoffman Institute as, or the program as like going to feelings camp.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

I can't go to feelings camp.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. It's intense.

[Devin Levesque]

It's intense.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

And you've done it, too.

[Jesse Itzler]

I couldn't do it.

[Gary Brecker]

Oh, okay.

[Jesse Itzler]

It's not. I hear amazing things about it, but it's just not for me.

[Gary Brecker]

I can't. I can't do. I can't do the no work, the no workout thing. That's like that and cold punch and sauna. Those are my drugs of choice. Yeah. Because nothing makes you feel better for longer. I. I can still tell right this moment that we worked out and did a sauna and did a cold plunge.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Like.

[Jesse Itzler]

Oh, yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Like, those are really long international flights.

[Jesse Itzler]

And you.

[Gary Brecker]

And you get there. I've flown. Feel like a different person.

[Jesse Itzler]

There's a massive ripple effect from it. Just also, like, just, you know, we're talking a little bit about best practices for everybody, which I love. I love getting best practices and tips. I had a company called Marquee Jet, and we flew.

[Gary Brecker]

I love this story, by the way. Look, can we. I want to. I don't want to interrupt you, but I want to go back to the first customer at your jet company before we get off this story, but go ahead.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, I was just going to say that we flew 3,000, 4,000 of the who's who have entrepreneurship, pop culture, athletes. I was 30 years old when we started the company, and I would ask everybody. I was obsessed with their habits. I didn't know anything. My dad owned the plumbing supply house I didn't have. Never took a business. I didn't know anything. So I'd be like, where do you vacation? How.

[Gary Brecker]

Where do you.

[Jesse Itzler]

How do you live? Rich. Like, what time do you wake up? What time do you go to bed? When you put. I didn't know I would just. And I was a sponge for. For all of those things. So I like that we're sharing some of the best practices, you know, But Devin had mentioned that he has five buckets and that if it doesn't fit into one of those buckets. One of the things that I do that I think has really helped me. It's kind of like a little bit of a hack, but, like, I did the same thing on a daily basis. What are the things that if I. If I had in a perfect day, like, what are the things. If I had unlimited time or money that I would love to do? What do I love to do? I love the song and cold plunge. I love to play with my kids, maybe go for a walk with my wife, maybe read maybe, you know, I don't know, everybody has different, different things. And like, maybe there's seven or eight items on those. Let's just call those your vitamins. Like, those are things that, like, make you feel good. You know, every day I try to do two or three of those things, and I found that if I can do those and check the Jesse box. You talked about being selfish in the morning with your time. A little bit.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

I am such a better dad or husband or boss or I show up so much better if my work or my wife or my children take those away from me for whatever reason, like, oh, you can't. I'm going to resent them. So if I can't, if my work is taking all that stuff away from me, I'm going to resent work. If my wife's like, no, we got to go to the opera. Like, I don't like going to the opera, but if I can get my son in cold, plunge in and check my box, I'm happy to go.

[Gary Brecker]

Right.

[Jesse Itzler]

If I have to go, and I don't do that. I'm mad at my wife.

[Gary Brecker]

So true. Walk. Right?

[Jesse Itzler]

So you got to check, you know, it's a simple exercise. Like, what do I love to do? Go for a walk, whatever. Do those two or three things and then like, the rest is like, okay. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

I, I, I feel that same way too. Like being selfish with your morning, then you can give the rest of your day away.

[Jesse Itzler]

You got to get wins and, you know.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

So let's, let's go back to marquee jets. And I'd love to, I'd love for you to tell the story about your, your, your first customer. Because I, I feel like, I feel like at 30 years old, starting a jet company is super random. Like, listen, there's what I share on this podcast and then there's what I share with my inner circle. If you've been following me for a while, you know how I hold nothing back here but my VIP community. That's where the real magic happens. Picture this. You're struggling with energy crashes, brain fog, or just feeling like you're not operating at your peak and you don't know where to get real answers. But here's what really sets this apart. You're not just getting my insights. When I have incredible guests on the podcast, VIP members get to submit questions for a private podcast segment. So that world renowned expert we just interviewed, you get exclusive access to their knowledge tailored to your specific situation. This section is under the private podcast section in the Ultimate Human Community. And speaking of exclusive, you're getting my personal protocols, the exact tools I use for water fasting, gut optimization, and morning routines that have taken me decades to perfect. This isn't theory. This is what works in the real world. The community launches challenges throughout the year where you get direct access to me and my network of experts. It's like having a personal health advisory board for less than a hundred dollars a month. Your health is your wealth, and this investment pays dividends for Life. Join the VIP community at theultimatehuman.com VIP and step into your ultimate potential. Now, let's get back to the Ultimate Human podcast.

[Jesse Itzler]

It was very random. Well, I started multiple businesses in my journey, and the common theme is I had no experience or background or in any of them, which for a lot.

[Gary Brecker]

Of people, terrible advice. Yes. If you have no experience, that's where you go.

[Jesse Itzler]

Super intimidating. But here's the blessing in that. It guaranteed that everything that I did in those spaces and my partner and I would look different than the competition because no one taught us how to do it. It's like, if nobody taught you how to do your job, how would you do it? You know, you. If you ripped up the playbook that everybody in your industry has been using for. Devin did it. He ripped up the wellness thing and opened up a farm and a. Basically a camp. I don't even know what I have to call a retreat center or whatever on a daily basis. What do you call it?

[Devin Levesque]

That was like a wellness farm.

[Jesse Itzler]

A wellness. I mean, like, he ripped up the playbook.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

He innovated, he disrupted.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

So, yes, I had no experience in aviation, and. But that guaranteed that I was going to talk to my customers differently. I was going to design a program. My partner and I were going to design a program that would fit our profile and what the customer wanted, not what the industry was telling me to do. And if you can get over that fear of being embarrassed or taking a chance or doing something different, because anytime you innovate, you're going to get met with. You're going to get met with resistance.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

If that's such a good idea, why. How come the big guys haven't done it or you don't have enough experience, why are you. You're going to get met with resistance. So if you can get over that and go in, it's super liberating. So when we started Marquee Jet, I didn't know what I was doing. I. I didn't even know how to get leads. Like, there was no. In the 1990s, there was no sophisticated way to get leads. I just went to where wealthy people went, where people that could afford time on a private jet. So I went to the TED talks in Monterey, California, and because I heard a lot of people from Silicon Valley go there, and I was like, I'm gonna go sell a jet card to somebody here. Like, we just started this company. There's a room full of wealthy people, except you needed a credential to get in. And I didn't have a credential. And they weren't letting anyone near the building. So I went to this little coffee shop and I was like, thinking, how am I gonna sneak into the fucking room? What usher can I looks vulnerable that I could pay off? Yeah, like, whose badge can I buy? Like, I'm getting? I'm. I'm leaving with a sale no matter what, right? There's no way I'm not leaving here with a sale.

[Devin Levesque]

Right?

[Jesse Itzler]

So every hour and two hours, a wave of people coming to this coffee shop with the credentials, and they were all buying lattes and muffins like crazy. Lattes and muffins and lattes and muffins. And I'm like, oh, this is where they go on break. And they're all coming here on break every two hours. So the next morning, I came back to the coffee shop and I bought all the muffins I like. I basically controlled all the muffin inventory for all of Monterey, California. And I just waited. And then a guy came in when they opened up and, you know, start to get the action. He orders a muffin, latte and a muffin. They're like, we're out of muffins. This is a completely true story. He starts to walk out, and I stop, and I'm like, I overheard you. Like, I have an extra muffin. He's like, you have a muffin? I'm like, I have 200 under my thing. And he's like, what are you doing here?

[Devin Levesque]

Here?

[Gary Brecker]

Just randomly, what are the chances you.

[Jesse Itzler]

Got one pumpkin P seed. Anyway, he's. We started talking and I told him what I did, and he's like, this is insane. I'm in the market for a jack card. And I recognized his name from. He would just been on the Wall Street Journal for selling his company half.com to eBay. So I recognized the name. He was my first customer. I sold him there.

[Gary Brecker]

And then.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, and then, you know what happened? I serviced the hell out of them. I like, you know, I did what everybody in my industry would do. They expected me to like, carry the luggage at the airplane and call and return calls, but I did the unexpected. You know, if you went to Mexico, I give him a list of doctors if anything happens to one of your kids. I vetted these doctors I made reservations for. I did. Just went over the top. Anybody can care the most.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

So when you have no experience, your secret power, your secret weapon, is caring the most. I cared so much about this guy's experience that you know what he did? He gave me a referral.

[Gary Brecker]

Oh.

[Jesse Itzler]

And then the next guy gave me a referral until we did $5 billion worth of referrals and sales and sold the company. So you don't have to have experience. It takes too long. Right. You have to be able to, you know, go and not worry about how I'm gonna do it because that's intimidating. Yeah, you'll figure out how if you really want to do it. And that's how we started that company. And I had a great partner who was super smart and we built a great team. And yeah, it was a crazy, crazy story. I'm still friends with Josh. With. His name's Josh Koppelman. I'm still friends with him.

[Devin Levesque]

Really?

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Telling him the muffin. That's. That is so awesome.

[Jesse Itzler]

He sends me muffins on the holidays.

[Gary Brecker]

Now that is like a little metaphor, dude. Two. Those 200 muffins turned into a five billion dollar company.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. That's what they call the tipping point. I don't know if you ever read that book the tipping Point, but it's like, I mean, it's. It's like that old adage of, you know, what a butterfly flaps in the forest, you know, and, and, and the ripple effect. And I think you're right. So so much of what impedes us is inside of our head. Right. It's like, well, I don't have the experience, I don't have the education, I don't have the contacts, I don't have the money. I don't have the relationships. Probably dawned on you that you'd never been in the jet business before. And I think most of us, we drag the past forward and we focus on those things. And when you just blow through all that and say, listen, I'm just going to figure this out and tell me, tell me a little bit about your journey with. And you recently exited Pro Mix, right?

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

But the funny thing is the impact that Pro Mix has had on my kids life, which is a little upsetting because, like, I'm, I'm. I'M their dad and they should be using my. But they're using yours. So something about your marketing, advertising, market penetration or something made it to my kids. And they're tough, man. I mean my daughter's a nurse, you know, my son's a pro athlete. And like they evaluate things and so now you've landed into their daily schedule. Yeah, I mean, how was that?

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah, I think, you know, when Albert and I started it, our whole thing was just no artificial anything. You know, we didn't trust any vitamin or supplement companies out there because there was not really any transparency.

[Gary Brecker]

And so this sort of pre Maha too. So like.

[Devin Levesque]

Correct.

[Gary Brecker]

That's very vogue now.

[Devin Levesque]

But yeah, yeah. And so, so we found this super clean farm where we got our grass fed whey protein from. We saw how they treated their cows. We saw you know, how they're milking it. We saw you, you basically to, to grade your cheese, to grade your whey protein or casein protein, you have to submit the cheese from that farm to, to a competition. And our cheese got ranked number one in the world. And so we had the best grass fed, we still do the best grass fed whey protein in the world. And that's what put us on the map. And then really ever since then, you know, I've traveled around the world and tried to find farms with Albert where we find the highest quality ingredients. So you know, when I was in Africa climbing Kilimanjaro, we, you know, we found this baobab seed which is a tree of life in the Lion King. And you know that, that baobob has a ton of vitamin C, a ton of potassium, great prebiotics. We add some amazing high quality turmeric to that, a probiotic and then organic oranges. And that creates this, you know, gut health digestion, helps with bloating and that's, that's our number one skew at pro mix. But you know, same thing with the fish oil. We went out to the Unimac Islands of Alaska and we're not just, you know, using farm, you know, raised Alaskan salmon. We're, we're hand, we're line cot wild caught cod liver and salmon and that's our fish oil. And so it's super high in antioxidants.

[Gary Brecker]

Intentional about ingredients.

[Devin Levesque]

Very intentional. Our beets, northern southern California high quality beets. The way that we actually plant the beets and dry them, we dry them at 106 degrees. And so that allows 97 of the nutrients to actually be absorbed in your body. So those are 20 times more absorbable. So you feel the nitrates turn into nitric oxide in your body and you're just like, whoa. Like this is an amazing pre workout. So everything has a story. It's not, we're not using a manufacturer and I think, you know, it's, it goes back to caring. We just, just care. My dad was a pro weightlifter. My mom was a pro arm wrestler. And like I've been taken by.

[Gary Brecker]

Mom was a pro arm.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Your mom was a professional armrest.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. That's also.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

Random. Yeah, she's a beast.

[Devin Levesque]

You gotta shake her hand.

[Gary Brecker]

I thought you. Because I thought you just mixed them up and you were gonna say my dad was a professional arm wrestler. Your mom.

[Jesse Itzler]

You sure about that?

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

If I meet your mom, she will be the only female professional arm wrestler I've ever known.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah. But like I've been taking vitamins and, and, and protein and working out and being on farm my whole life. And I think when, when we started promix, we just cared. We just cared more. We want to tell the story more. We, we just care. And I think, you know, we're not, I'm not, you know, I didn't graduate college. I'm not a biologist. You know, I'm not like the smartest guy in the room, but I fucking care. And I, and I, and if I'm going to put my name on something, then I'm gonna care the most.

[Gary Brecker]

It's awesome, man. I saw the way you showed up this morning for the workout, man. I mean, you just got after it. You gotta get super motivational during it. Let's go guys, let's go. Like I'm trying not to die, you know, I mean these two are way out front on the sprint, the run, and I was just trying to get through it.

[Devin Levesque]

But I love when Jess talks about the spiritual billionaire.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. And like I want to switch that too.

[Devin Levesque]

And I kind of want to segue into that because it's. Look, we're in Miami. Flew in last night. Everyone's, you know, taken an extra five minutes to get out of their Ferrari in front of the hotel. And you know, they're taking photos and selfie videos and like doing the whole thing. And like, I just feel like priority priorities are off and, and the world of social media, it puts that pressure on a lot of people. On what, how you define success. And I love when he talks about spiritual billionaire because I, I feel like it's the right way to go about life and I think it could help a lot of People.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

You know, I want to talk about the spiritual billionaire. There's something that we discovered in the. In the mortality space. We were in mortality science and was basically that if you wanted to cut a human being's life expectancy in half, and I mean in half at any age, you put them in isolation. Like, we all know about broken heart syndrome, right? I mean, couple that's married 40, 50, 60 years, some of us have grandparents. This has happened to one passes. What happens to the other spouse. I mean, what's changed in their physiology? It's. They're isolated. We are the most isolated we have been in recorded history because we think that connection comes through our cell phone, but connection comes from, like, what we did this morning, what we're doing right now.

[Jesse Itzler]

Right.

[Gary Brecker]

So having a principle where you could apply something like that to becoming a billionaire, because, you know, I think there's a segment of society that sees success as evil. Like, if you succeeded at doing something you were passionate about, you must have done something wrong.

[Jesse Itzler]

There's been a huge shift in that. That you're 100% right.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. And it's. It's. It's sad because, I mean, that's the American dream. Right. I mean, my intention is to make the biggest, wealthiest, most profitable companies in the world. The companies that are the most intentional about what they're doing for their customer. Wouldn't that be amazing if the most profitable companies actually derived all of their success from actually doing something good for humanity?

[Devin Levesque]

Sure.

[Gary Brecker]

So what is the spiritual billionaire? How does.

[Jesse Itzler]

Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because I totally agree. I see that. I feel that, you know, like, you're getting penalized for being successful or trying to do the right thing or whatever.

[Gary Brecker]

Some people have judged you before you walked in. Crazy. Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

Well, I mean, like, I just think that I remember when I was growing up, someone. I had an opportunity. I had. I had. No. At this point in my life, when I graduated college, I was writing jingles, like commercials for brands, theme songs for. For teams or whatever. And I would do them on spec, and then I would. So it means I would go and pay my own money, go in the studio, make a song for, like, the New York Knicks, whatever, try to get a meeting, then try to convince them they need a song. But I had no money to make these demos anymore. And someone offered me $10,000 for 10% of all of my future earnings. And I was like, I'll take it. You know, like.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

And he was. His argument was, you'll make a Lot more money with me helping you and owning 10% than you will on your own. So I'll give you 10 grand, you give me 10% of the rest of your life. And I almost did it. I'll come back to that story in a second. But I remember him telling he was a music manager and I remember him telling me he had a partner that was super successful that he left because he would rather make a quarter himself than a dollar with that guy. And like, at 23, I was like, what? Like I'd rather make a dollar no matter what, you know, like it didn't make sense to me, you know, But I understood that later on. You know, I've been in relationship business relationships where I just left when I could have made a lot more money because I just didn't. I wasn't feeling where it was going or whatever. And I think that's really important, you know, to, to understand, like pigs get slaughtered.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

You know, and pigs get slaughtered. And sometimes if you're happy and you're making a little bit of money versus, you know, maybe pushing it to not like that. That balance has always been on my mind. And like I said, I think there's two sides of business. There's the financial side, which is so important. And obviously we tend to over index in the energy we put into like making money. But then there's a huge spiritual side. You know, were you philanthropic? Were you kind to your customers? What kind of culture did you build? Did you have adventure on top of in your life while you were building your empires, etc, etc? And we, we don't get taught, we tend to neglect that side. And if you have a billion dollars, but your spirit. Zero. A billion times zero. Zero. But if you just have one dollar, and I know a lot of people that are in this bucket, if you just have $1, but your spirit is a billion. A dollar times a billion is a billion. And not everyone's going to get the wealth, but everybody can have the other side. So like, you talked about Devin and like a minute ago and you were mentioning like, oh, he came into the workout and he was so enthusiastic and he built everybody up and he was like, let's go. Devin's superpower, one of them. He has a lot, but one of his biggest superpowers is enthusiasm. And if I were going to ask the listeners to make a list of all the qualities they would want around people that in their life, maybe even if you're a CEO and you're hiring somebody, you would want passion, enthusiasm, what else Integrity, honesty, you know, like fun. I don't know. You have all these different words and I guarantee you, all the words that you put down, like enthusiasm, like passion, like caring the most, those aren't skills. You don't learn those in college. Those are attitudes. You know, attitudes are free. Those are decisions. So when I say a dollar times a billion, the billion is the enthusiasm, the attitude, the taking care of people, the being nice. Like those are free.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

You know, and those are things even if you got a 980 on your SAT, you can master. And I feel like that side of it doesn't get discussed and gets lost.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. And how do we get people to reframe that? Like, like the big ass calendar I, I love. Because it's a visual like example of your life. You can actually design your life for the next year. You have a lot more control over your time than you think you do. But for those people that are in that, I mean, most of the people listening to this podcast are either working for someone or they work for themselves and they got a business going on. So they're, they're, they're, they're feeling that on both sides. How do we, how do we develop some of the intentions? Like what is the life design that I can go through, the stages that I can go through to make sure that I bring some of this back into my life?

[Jesse Itzler]

Well, I think we gave people. I was just thinking about all the things that we've covered in this.

[Gary Brecker]

Do we have allotment?

[Jesse Itzler]

And I was thinking that we've given people a little bit of a blueprint. So imagine this whether you work for somebody or whether you have your own business, no matter how old you are. But imagine we just did the two, two things that we, that we talked about earlier. You do, you do everything the same in 2026. Don't change anything. But you just layered in, let's say these three things. One, you put one big year defining thing on your calendar. Right. Two, you do every other month. So every eight weeks you take a day and you do something you normally wouldn't have done. You just put a little mini adventure in there. Go fishing, go to the farm, a day, whatever. So you have six little mini adventures. Okay. And the third thing I would suggest, I'm not big on resolutions. New Year's resolutions historically, don't work.

[Devin Levesque]

And by the way, today, January 16th is, is. I was just gonna say that failure. What is it failure day or quitter day? Today? Today's national quitter.

[Gary Brecker]

This is so this like that was serendipitous.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, but, but talking about a system that anyone can do. So one big thing, six mini adventures. And then instead of a resolution, I talked earlier about the importance of having winning habits, winning routines and a winning mindset. I truly believe that's the foundation for a lot of success. Every quarter, add one winning habit to your life. It's very simple. I don't drink enough water. I'm going to have 100 ounces of water a day. I, I'm, I'm going to start a 10 minute a day meditation practice. I'm never going to be late to a meeting again. Just at the end of this year, if you had four new winning habits or go out five years now you've had five massive year defining things. Maybe you launched a podcast, maybe you stopped smoking, maybe you ran a marathon. You have now you have 30 new adventures you would have had and now you'll have 20 new winning habits. Like, you're starting to like, get a process where, like, and it's going to have a ripple effect on the people around you and your life. You know, like when Devin goes to, he's going to Africa. Dev's taking a trip with friends to Africa. That trip's in two months from now, but it's on his calendar. He's excited about it. He's willing to work harder now because he knows he's gonna, he's, we're reward driven. He's gonna get a reward to a trip for Africa for 14 days with his buddies. He's willing to go crazy for 60 days to earn that trip.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

Because it's, if that's not on the calendar, oh, I gotta go to work. I got, it's. What are you looking forward to?

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

You know, so those carrots out there matter. They matter. They matter. And he's gonna show up now. He goes to Africa. Watch this play out. And now maybe Dev, maybe Dev works for a company and now he's in the lunchroom at, at lunch, he's in the kitchen and he's telling us to spend on a trip to Africa. I went this, I went on a safari. I was in this culture, people. He's interesting.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

Maybe gets the promotion because he's interesting. Maybe he gets hired because he's interesting. Like I said, the more you experience, the more you have to offer, the more interesting you are, the more people want to be around you. Like, get out and experience, man. Like, get out. And we live in this country with amazing rivers, insane oceans, hiking trails. I climbed Mount Washington with my son when he was nine, cost $18 to park there. We camped overnight in the winter. Like, you know, there's no excuses around. If you live in the United States of America, the adventures and opportunities that you have to do things, to break up your routine, to feel good about yourself, to feel accomplished, are everywhere. Yeah, they're everywhere. Yeah.

[Devin Levesque]

And also with that, you know, the human makes, on average 250,000 decisions per week.

[Jesse Itzler]

I don't know what the hell Gary put in this one.

[Gary Brecker]

I feel like the hydrogen. Don't you feel the hell is going on here, man? I feel insane. No hours in here.

[Jesse Itzler]

I'm a teenager. I feel like I'm going through puberty.

[Gary Brecker]

I tell people about hydrogen all the time. They're like, ah, he's just trying to sell hydrogen tablets.

[Jesse Itzler]

Pour this over my head. What is going on in this house?

[Gary Brecker]

That's the beauty of my chair.

[Devin Levesque]

It's the comfort. Yo, I feel amazing.

[Gary Brecker]

I feel great, too.

[Jesse Itzler]

I can't even sit down.

[Gary Brecker]

Like, sometimes I literally. I crawl on top of my wife in the morning. I'm like, there's, like, happiness coming out of my pores. And she's like, shut up your mouth.

[Jesse Itzler]

I don't know what you have going on here, but I'm smelling. I've never smelt in my life. Smell things going on in Sarasota from here.

[Devin Levesque]

Crazy.

[Gary Brecker]

Oh, dude, that's freaking awesome.

[Jesse Itzler]

There it is.

[Gary Brecker]

I feel. I feel great. God, imagine you can feel like this every day.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, I'll be back here tomorrow.

[Devin Levesque]

What I was saying, though, 250,000 decisions.

[Gary Brecker]

That'S mindful.

[Devin Levesque]

Everyone's so indecisive about making decisions. Like, should I do that? They're making up stories in their brain. I think decision making becomes so much easier when you're around people, good people and different people. If you take the same subway to work every day and you go to the same coffee shop and you go to the same gym every single day, you're seeing the exact same people. What if you. You didn't take that subway? What if you walked. What if you walked down a different block? What if you tried out a new gym and got, you know, the. You know, most gyms do first seven days free. What if. What if you didn't sit with those same people at lunch? What starts happening to your brain? How. How can you create aha. Moments in your life so you're not just doing the same every day?

[Jesse Itzler]

I totally agree.

[Devin Levesque]

That's what I love doing. And it's free. You're simply just trying Something different, walking a different way, being around different people. And then you can start making decisions in a. In a much more intentional way.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Devin Levesque]

You know, 1. 1. Because you're getting more aha moments in your life.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Devin Levesque]

Because you're not doing the same shit every day. If you're around your family every single day, and your mom's like, you know, which my mom's not, but your mom's kind of like, son, why are you doing that?

[Jesse Itzler]

I don't.

[Devin Levesque]

I don't agree with that. Get away from that for a sec. Go try to be around people that add a little different value to your life.

[Gary Brecker]

Dude. I love that. Dude. I'm. I probably am a byproduct of making decisions too quickly. Like, I make 100% of my decisions with about 60% of the information I can. I walked into my condo one morning. I was like, I really don't like this furniture, and I haven't liked it for a while, and why should I live with this? And I called a buddy of mine who has a consignment shop in Naples, and I had him bring three 25 foot moving trucks and take every ounce of furniture.

[Devin Levesque]

Oh, my God.

[Gary Brecker]

So my wife. Wife. My wife was on vacation, and she walked in and it was a basketball court.

[Jesse Itzler]

It was completely funny.

[Gary Brecker]

Empty.

[Jesse Itzler]

That's funny.

[Gary Brecker]

I took the chandeliers out of the ceiling. I just got rid of everything. She goes, why did you do that? And I said, because if I didn't, I wouldn't redesign it. So now we're in a box. Now we have to do it. And she's like, could you have left the couch? And then I had, like, Dana White and Tom Brady. I had all these folks who would come to my house, and I had to bring the table because I forgot the table on the balcony. So funny to bring the picnic table from in there to sit it in. My kitchen was the only piece of furniture we had for, like, three months. So. But how do you. How do you land some of this? I see how it's landing in business and life design. How do you land some of this in your relationships, like, with your. With your spouse? Because I think we all know that the choice you make, you know, in your spouse is the single most important decision you'll make for the rest of your life. I guess we would all agree on that. Or we better, because our wives might watch this podcast. Hey, guys, let me tell you about one of my favorite new hydration drinks. Now, this is for distance athletes, hits, cardio exercisers, people that sweat A lot or exercise intensely. An A game is a hydration drink. It has eight essential vitamins. It has all of the electrolytes, the entire suite of B vitamins. Before you freak out and read that, it has 21 grams of sugar, which it does. The sugar is coming from natural cane sugar and honey, my preferred mechanisms for getting glucose into the blood during intense exercise. It also has natural flavors, but these natural flavors don't come from bacterial fermentation. They actually come from real citrus fruits. And the color is from vegetable juice, not artificial dyes. So next time you're looking for a great hydration drink and you're exercising intensely, a game is your choice. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast.

[Jesse Itzler]

Right? Yeah, I'm not married.

[Gary Brecker]

You got a girl in your life.

[Devin Levesque]

But I'm just saying.

[Gary Brecker]

So I'm talking about those relationships, right? Your, your, your, your, your, your romantic relationships. I mean, if. At least if you're in a committed one, if you're single, it's all good. Yeah, but how do you land these, you know, in. Into relationships? Is there intentionality about how you think about your marriage?

[Jesse Itzler]

I mean, I think everybody's different. I think for us, I can only speak from, you know, my experience. We plan a lot. You know, we have four children under 16, and Sarah's. My wife's an entrepreneur. She had Spanx, and she now has her new company, and I'm an entrepreneur. So like, like, we. We literally spent an hour and a half last week going over just this month of January. Date night meals, family dinners, times what we want. Like, we went through everything. It took an hour and a half, really. And we went through. Yeah, we went through. And we'll do it again in February. We meet every Monday, and we go through for about an hour. Like just kid's calendar, our calendar, what we want to do. I just sent her a text last night, like, like, would you want to go to three places? I said we could take two or three nights this month. Or I gave her D. It's like, we, we do that. And that's been a work in progress, you know, because, like, a lot of that was just because Sarah was like, we need more time. Like, you know, so we put this, okay, let's meet every Monday. Let's lay it out. Because I was neglecting that I'm running around like a lunatic. So. But now that I have this, this water here, I feel like everything is four times as fast since I've been in here.

[Gary Brecker]

How the cognitive function, People that like the lights Come on.

[Devin Levesque]

No, I thought this was a black curtain. It's fully, like, pink now.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

Gary, I met you two hours ago, and I am now fluent in Mandarin.

[Gary Brecker]

Because you went to China six months.

[Jesse Itzler]

Ago, and now the thing is five times as fast. No, I spent.

[Gary Brecker]

We spent.

[Jesse Itzler]

So we spend a lot of time.

[Gary Brecker]

I would like that.

[Jesse Itzler]

I'd actually like to make a suggestion that we do the rest of this podcast in a foreign language.

[Gary Brecker]

I'm fine. What's your problem? Say before you want to switch to French. That's my own. That's the only place I can go, dude. I'm telling you, you. When inflammation drops in your brain, the transmission speed picks up and it's like, focus, energy, concentration, mental clarity, short term recall. It's just right there.

[Jesse Itzler]

No, I just drank this glass of water. I feel like I got a blood transfusion.

[Gary Brecker]

You like? The best advertisement for hydrogen water ever. I forgot what we were talking about now. We're, like, so super intelligent beings that I've lost complete track of what we were talking about, our relationships.

[Jesse Itzler]

A lot to see.

[Devin Levesque]

Fun interview, though.

[Gary Brecker]

This is really fun, man. Thank you. It's almost like we smoked weed. But I want to promise you guys, there was no weed, no cbd, just hydrogen. That's the only thing that went into our water.

[Jesse Itzler]

Listen, you got to have fun, man.

[Gary Brecker]

I mean, I agree, man.

[Jesse Itzler]

You know, like, I like that. I love that you guys didn't send any questions. I called my assistant. I'm like, there any questions or anything? They're like, no. I'm like, what?

[Gary Brecker]

I also didn't write down a thing. Devin wrote these down before the podcast. He's like, this is some cool to talk to him about. He just literally did this in the sauna right before you walk in. But I. I like to just, like, flow.

[Jesse Itzler]

I like it too.

[Gary Brecker]

Feel it out, you know?

[Jesse Itzler]

I like it too. And you're like, you gotta have fun, man. Like, my. I had a guy that I work with, this guy by the name of Bob Sillerman, said, you want to make money, you want to have fun, and you want to have fun making money. And it's true. Like, you know, like, making you make a lot of money, but you're not having fun or it's just you really want to have an element of joy in. In. In your work.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, you know, it's. We had a fraternity reunion years ago, and one of the founding fathers of our fraternity came to speak, and he was in his late 80s, and he was one of the few that was still alive so we brought him to our. And this is when I was, I think a sophomore in college. And so I wasn't really thinking about, I didn't have any, like, spiritual orientation at the time. Wasn't planning my life, life. And so the whole room's quiet and we give him a lot of respect. And he ambles up onto the stage, he gets to the podium and we're expecting this really profound speech. And, and he goes, young men, all you'll get out of life are your family, your friends, and a few good times. Thank you. He walked off the stage and I get goosebumps to this day, like thinking about that, that, that speech. He's, he's long gone now, but here he was like in his, in his late 80s and I was like, there was a lot of wisdom in that speech family.

[Jesse Itzler]

I love that.

[Gary Brecker]

And a few good times.

[Jesse Itzler]

It reminds me of, of the famous speech where the guy comes on the stage and he says, you have a lot of food, many problems. You have no food, one problem. And I like that, man. You got a lot.

[Gary Brecker]

It's, yeah, it's like the way we talk about our health, by the way.

[Jesse Itzler]

I did that with an accent, I don't think.

[Gary Brecker]

Well, you speak Mandarin now.

[Jesse Itzler]

So much smarter if you say lots of food, many problem.

[Gary Brecker]

You sound like, yeah, one problem, like.

[Jesse Itzler]

Chat came into me. Hydrogen.

[Gary Brecker]

It's like, it's, it's like that, you know, the, the healthy man has how many wishes and the unhealthy man has, has one. Right? And that's, you know, that's, that's been a blessing of my life because, you know, for me, I'm, I'm so curious. I'm like a child. I'm like fascinated by human physiology and, and like, I don't even like to vacation because it takes me away from my work. So like, when I vacation, I actually will, like I'm a nerd. So I'll like read peer reviewed science and stuff and try to draw all these conclusions because I'm just so, so intellectually curious about it. I'm genuinely like, excited and curious about it. And to have found a profession where I can meet my mentors, have conversations like this. Like, you know, for me, I'd read 12 or 13 of Mark Hyman's books that were New York Times bestsellers ten years before I ever met him. And when he walked through, when he got off the elevator and walked off the elevator into my apartment, I was like, holy.

[Devin Levesque]

This is so.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah, it's crazy.

[Gary Brecker]

I could sit down with you for 90 minutes and ask you anything I want. You're, you're here to talk to me like, this is, this is just. Thank you, God. You know, it's just so amazing. And I think when we can find fun and if you're intellectually curious about things, I think like that passion and curiosity to me are the most attractive emotions. You know, I read, I read a clinical study about, about emotion. And it's called the Spain Scale of Emotion, the scale of positive and negative emotion. And what they did was they measured frequency leaving human beings bodies, and they, they found that the highest amplitude and therefore the most attractive frequency, if you will, if you believe in the universal law of attraction, is the frequency of authenticity. And during this study, they found that authenticity was only emanated when someone's words were truthful and they believed what they were saying. So they could be saying the truth but not believe it, or they could be telling a lie and believe it and it wouldn't be authentic. And it started to let me kind of understand this whole thing we call intuition. It's not really intuition. It's a sensitivity to frequency.

[Jesse Itzler]

Right?

[Gary Brecker]

Like, my wife is really good at this. Like, she'll be like, I don't like that guy. Something's up. I mean, I, I'm telling you, babe, I don't think that you should be doing business with him. And I'm like, what? Look at the shoes pulled up in a Ferrari. He's got a nice suit. You know, we do do a deal, and six months later, you're pulling the knife out of your back.

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

You know, so I, I, I think there's a lot to be said for, like, when you talk about your, your life design. I, I just love that like, like fun family adventure is right at the top because we lose it so much as we get kids and we just get so stoic and freaking boring.

[Devin Levesque]

You know, one, one thing I noticed when we rode our bikes across America.

[Gary Brecker]

That had to suck a lot too, from, Huh? A lot of it had to suck. I mean, it was fun.

[Devin Levesque]

It was so fun.

[Gary Brecker]

15 hours a day riding a bike.

[Devin Levesque]

We pulled a sauna with us.

[Jesse Itzler]

No, it was like, we was like Ringling Brothers, just circuses pulling into everywhere we go.

[Gary Brecker]

I mean, we had the Winnebago.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah. We had the whole thing wired, but.

[Devin Levesque]

You know, it was San Diego to Florida and like, you know, middle America. We went the south route. I mean, there's a lot of people that just live simply. You know, they, they live in a tent. You know, they, they get what food they need for that day. When you start adding things to your life, you're asking for more pressure. You're asking for more problems. So anyone can simplify down. Anyone can, like, just take it away, right? Clean out after. If you're not using something in your house for, you know, three to six months, donate it out.

[Gary Brecker]

I love you. Talk about your closet.

[Devin Levesque]

You know what I mean? Like, simplify. Simplify your friends, simplify who you're seeing. Simplify. Just simplify. Take and watch the stress in your life just start to. And then maybe build it back up if you need to. Yeah, you know?

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, I. I heard you talk about, on a podcast about how you like, I wanted to start the year clean and you went into your closet.

[Jesse Itzler]

Yeah.

[Gary Brecker]

What did you do?

[Jesse Itzler]

No, I just like, I think one of the things that I do coming into the new year, which is appropriate now as we go into January, but is I just want to come in light. I don't want to carry all the baggage from 2025 with me. So that means deleting my emails. That means getting rid of, subscribe unsubscribing to stuff. You know, that means getting rid of all the apps I don't use. But it starts in my closet. You know, I try to, like, get rid of everything I don't wear. You know, it just makes me feel like less decisions. It just makes me feel like I don't want to play catch up going into 2026. So I spend a little bit of time and a lot of times I'll look at a night, I'm like, I really like this, but I don't wear it. What do I do with it? And I'll just say, like, well, someone probably needs this more than me. You know, if it's a jump ball and it goes in the donate box. So this year I had like maybe four or five bags of stuff I just donated. And I'll tell you, man, it might sound insignificant, but I walk into my closet and it's like, organized. There's not a lot of stuff in there. Only the stuff that I wear is light.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Jesse Itzler]

In general, I want to walk around feeling as light as I can physically light. We talked about fasting, we talked about dieting and all this stuff. I want to feel not processed. You know, all the stuff you talk about all the time. Time light, people wise, light. I don't want people that are, like, zapping me of energy. Like, that's why I was on friend reduction. Yeah, all of it. I want to be light, man. And you. We talked about Goggins. Super light. And like, that was my. That's one of my takeaway. Right. I wanted to be simple. We talked about that earlier. So. Yeah. So it starts in my closet.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah. That's so amazing. You know, I. I always wind down my podcast by asking all my guests the same question. I have a feeling this one's going to go on for a little while. But what does it mean to each of you to be an ultimate human? What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

[Devin Levesque]

Yeah, for me, it's. I, I don't really. I don't compare against people. I don't compare against, you know, even, you know, I have multiple businesses. I don't really look at competitors. I'm comparing myself right now to the guy I was yesterday. And I'm not going too much further back than that. Just from yesterday and tomorrow, Saturday, I'm going to compare myself to who I was the day before. Did I work out a little bit harder? Did I call my mom and sisters? Did I. Did I. Was I honest? Did I have integrity? Did I do the right thing? Did I. You know, I. I'm, you know, I'm pretty religious. I'm. I'm actually. Do the Kabbalah right now. I love reading the Bible. Like, I'm, you know, I'm so written and so, like, I. I can. I. Was I a better person than I was before? In every aspect. Brain, Spiritually.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah.

[Devin Levesque]

Physically. And so for me, the ultimate human is just being a better person than I was the day before.

[Jesse Itzler]

I think that people talk about success, and I think it's important that you have a definition of what success looks like for you. So for LeBron James, that might be winning the championship in the Olympics and being the mvp, but for a school teacher, it might be like success is changing the lives of kids. It's. Everyone's definition is different.

[Devin Levesque]

Right.

[Jesse Itzler]

One of the definitions I have is being as good as I can be in the buckets that matter the most to me. So maybe that's business, wellness, family, whatever it is, whatever your buckets are. So I think part of ultimate means the best. So the ultimate human, to me, ultimate human, I think, is being as good as you can be in the buckets that matter to you. That doesn't mean you're the best in the world, but you're as good as you can be, or trying to be as good as you can be in the buckets that matter the most to you. And then the other thing that came to my mind when you asked the question was, I want to be able to squeeze as much out of life as I can, you know, so part of that staying healthy and some of that's within our control, but some of it isn't within our control necessarily. Like, you know, we can't control everything, but the longer the. Look, I want to stay young as long as possible. I want to die young. Yeah, as late as possible. Yeah, I want to die young as late as possible.

[Gary Brecker]

Dude, I'm going to write that one down. Can we write that down? I want to die young as late as possible. If that's not trademarked, I'm trademarking.

[Jesse Itzler]

Oh, it's the name. It's the name of my next book.

[Gary Brecker]

Oh, it is. You're going to crush. I love that. That, man. I'm going to get a pre copy.

[Jesse Itzler]

I, like, I said it, like, I just thought of it, but, like, it's the name of my next book.

[Gary Brecker]

Forgot what it's called. I didn't make this up. Like, it is true.

[Jesse Itzler]

I do want to. I want to die young as late as I possibly can.

[Gary Brecker]

That is such a good metaphor, man. And I completely, totally agree with you guys.

[Jesse Itzler]

Trademarks for sale if you want it.

[Gary Brecker]

Yeah, we'll make it offer as soon as the podcast is over. Brother. Guys. Awesome, brother. What a random workout turned into today. How amazing is life? Guys, this was absolutely incredible. We're going to follow this journey. I hope I'll have you both back on again sometime soon. And until next time, guys, that's just science.