How to Use Time to Know What Truly Matters

0:01Welcome to the Be Wealthy Podcast, where we bring entrepreneurs the strategies and tactics to grow your business and unlock new opportunities. Once you've achieved success, we'll teach you how to think about your money. Because wealth is about more than just cash flow, it's about freedom. Now, our host, Brett Tanner. Welcome back to the Be Wealthy Podcast. I'm Brett Tanner and this is a show where we deep dive into the real world strategies, mindsets, and tactics that unlock financial freedom and create true abundance in your life. Today's episode is all about how you plan your next year so you get the most out of it. How do you think about the big rocks in your life? And how do you live a life by design and not a life by default? We're going to show you the strategies the really wealthy use to plan a year in advance and live the life that you really are excited about living. Let's jump in with my co-host Katelyn Mitchell in today's podcast. You know, we we're calling these things seasons, Caleb, but

1:02we don't know we don't know where it will end. Um, but we're on a mission and today's mission is actually to teach people how to think differently about their time and how you make better choices. Okay. How do you really start thinking, you know, further out? And the more I'm out there studying what the really, really successful people do, the more it's apparent to me, Katelyn, that they think in different increments of time. We all use time, right? We all have 24 hours in a day. We kind of get that concept. Um, but what I'm what I've learned from studying people, they're thinking further out into the future, and they're using the future, right? what they want at different points in the future to impact decisions in the present. And I can tell you that's something I was not doing 20 years ago. Uh and the more you realize that you can use the future as a tool to help realign your goals, um the future becomes a really important piece of thinking about time. And so today, Kim, I want to walk our audience through an exercise that I did about I think the first time I did

2:06it was 15 years ago. I did this exercise and I did it with a terrible instructor who left you in a really dark place. And so on the podcast, we're not going to do that today. We're going to leave you in a really empowered place. And I think you'll think differently uh about how you think about time. So with that, Katelyn, I'm going to share my screen and I am going to I think we're there. Katelyn, can you see that?
I can. Yes.
Katelyn, that's Iron Man. Uh that's not Tony Stark. That's actually Iron Man. Uh, and so the coolest thing you could ever do as a presenter, Katelyn, is to try to work an Iron Man quote into your presentation and have it actually fit with it. And that's what we've done here, which is no amount of money ever bought a second of time. And that's Tony Stark, uh, I believe in the original Iron Man. And it's actually, I mean, I'm doing this as a spoof, but it couldn't be more true, right? No matter how much money you have, you can't get your time back. And so you got to really think about what's your process to think about time because you can do anything you want, Caleb, but you just can't do

3:07everything. Uh you can have everything you want, you just can't have it all right now. And so life's all about priorities and how do we realign to think differently about them. So as we go through this, uh time's your most valuable asset, Katelyn. You absolutely can't waste it. And you've got to figure out how to get more out of the time. I'll let every listener out there decide what they define more as. But I think you're going to leave this episode with a framework that'll change forever how you plan your year and how you think about time. Uh, one of my folks here is the unknown.
Katelyn,
oh, I was going to say you you talk a lot about we have three resources in life, right?
Time,
money, talent, money, talent, and time. And we spend the majority of this podcast talking about how to optimize your money, right? But if you have three resources in life, money, influence, or or talent, and time, spending an episode talking about the time component is

4:10really important because that's the only one that's the only resource, right, that is finite. We only have a specific amount of it. Um, so I think that's really I'm super excited for this episode.
Well, and I'm I'm glad you anchored that point. I mean, I think I don't think a lot of people realize this, or maybe they do, that if you took a really wealthy person, if you ask Warren Buffett right now, if he could give up 100% of his net worth, which as of this recording is probably $158 billion, and he could give all of it up and go back and be 20 and broke, he would make that decision in 11 seconds, right? Cuz time, it's the most valuable thing. It's way more valuable than money. And I think this quote on the screen right now encompasses that that people are stingy with their money even though it's replaceable. They could go get more of it. They're frivolous with their time even though they can get it back. And so as you go through this episode, I want you to imagine, Katelyn, that rag you've cleaned some things up. You've you've mopped up some water or something in your in your kitchen and you go to ring it out in the kitchen sink. And you

5:12know, you ring it out, it's done. But then if you really get in there and squeeze, you can get a few more drops out of it. Yes,
that's how you got to think about your days, right? And when I every night when I lay in bed, right before I go to bed, I'm thinking about my day. I'm running it back and I'm asking the question of, you know, what could I have done differently? What could I have improved? When I look at tomorrow, what am I what's on my schedule for tomorrow? Does it matter? Am I living my purpose? And are the activities I'm doing ultimately going to land me where I want? And time is the way to figure that out. So Katelyn, if we want our audience to grow exponentially in a single year, we're going to take them through an exercise here in a minute. Um, that had a huge impact on both of us, and I know you're going to share your story here in a minute. Uh, but for a long time, and this actually just went away cuz I did some work in my closet, and the reason why this disappeared for a moment doesn't matter, but it's going to come back. And Katelyn, the chart you're seeing on the screen, for those who are listening or viewing it, if you're listening, there's a chart on the screen that's got all these small little boxes, and there's a ton of them on there. And it's basically every little box represents a month of or a week of your

6:15life. And there's enough weeks on here that there's 90 years, right? So 52* 90 it's probably like 45 billion. Uh I'm just kidding. Uh but there's all of these little box on boxes on the screen. And forever every single week on Monday when I would go to my closet, I would check off one of my weeks. Meaning that's a week of my life that I cannot get back. And I do it just as a centering purpose that it centers me on what matters. Realizing that time is finite. And Katelyn, I think the easiest way to really frame this exercise in is, you know, you've got to project yourself to the end of your life. And uh there's a quote or not a quote, but a story Warren Buffett tells it a lot. And I think it was I think it was Isaac Newton, but don't hold me to that. Um and they actually ran an obituary about him and telling what like a terrible person he was. and he hadn't died. Okay. Like the obituary like wasn't great. It was his brother. So he goes back and he spent all this time or actually it was Nobel. It was the the Nobel Peace Prize. So it was um I can't think of the guy's

7:18first name, Nobel. But he went out saw his obituary. He's like, "Oh my gosh, I that's not how I want to be remembered." Goes back changes his whole life. Ended up creating the Nobel Peace Prize out of this thing that I want to change how I'm remembered. And so for me, thinking about that time's final, our lives all will end at some point. And so that's the way that I get the most out of the present is by going to the future and saying, "Hey, I'm not going to be here forever. So what I'm doing has to really, really matter." And so, Katelyn, I want to start, if you'll uh roleplay this with me a little bit. You know, you take your current age, Katelyn. You don't have to say it out loud. People will be able to do the math later and figure it out. And Katelyn, by the way, I'm much younger than hearing this.
She's exponentially younger than me. It comes up all the time. Um, so you take your current age, Katelyn, you're take 90 and you're going to subtract your current age, which the joke I have when I'm doing this for the front of the room is that should give you a two-digit number. You know, if it doesn't give you a two-digit number, Katelyn, you feel free to use your calculator.
I can share my age.
As of this recording, I'm 41. So, we're taking

8:21
41 years old. 90us 41.
Okay, that's 49.
Multiply that times 365. Okay.
And what number do you have?
17,885.
70,885. My number being 45 years old was 16425. Uh so Katelyn, the number I just gave you, you're 17,885 is the amount of days you have left on this planet under the most optimal scenario that exists today. And for most people, that's a really sobering moment. So if you're driving right now or you're listening, you're like, "Man, this guy's taken us on a really weird path in the first 8 minutes of the podcast." But it's really important to realize that once you realize those are the days you have left, Katelyn, you can't get them back. You can't add to it. You can add to it through longevity, of course, but we took a pretty uh we took a pretty aggressive meaning, a very generous getting to age 90, right? That's not the

9:23average life expectancy of humans today. you know, we're a little over that. So, Katelyn, we gave you the best case scenario. And so, it's I think the best exercise we can all do is realize tomorrow, Katelyn, you're down to 17. You know, that's going down, right, every single day, right? It's less and less. And so, we've got to figure out what do we want, what matters, what people matter, what things we want to do. Realizing your time is finite and that your future, it could be anything you want, but it can't be everything. Is it important to anchor that in and really start thinking about your time? So, if we look at it that way, Katelyn, we can't afford to waste it. We realize it's important. So, how can we think differently? And so, when you think about it this way, Katelyn, there's different seasons that are better to do certain things in your life. As an example, um let's do snow skiing as an example. Okay. So, snow skiing, right? Winners. So, Katelyn, you're you're 41. you've got 49 winters left. The argument I would make is that

10:26the winter at age 90 is not as valuable as the winter at age 41. Why do I believe that to be true? Because again, the activities you can do, right? Certain things that are just as good at 90, right? Reading a book, sitting by a fire, those things are equal might be better at 90, I could argue, right? Because you're getting to think back with the memories and you got all these dividends. Um, and there's a book that kind of encompasses called Die with Zero by Bill Perkins that I actually don't agree with the entire premise of the book, but it gets you in the right frame that it's the person with the most life experience that wins the game, not the most money. And so, Kate, when I think about Winters, you know, I immediately have got three little kids. And so, when I first started this exercise, I mean, I had a a baby, a three-year-old, and a six-year-old. Well, winter, right? First of all, I live in Phoenix, Arizona. So, winter, we don't get a lot of snow. So, when I'm defining winter, I think snow. So, I got to number one, I got to go up to my cabin to be able to be in the snow. Number two, we got to actually have snow at the cabin, right? It's a two-parter. Um, and so, you know, now I was out there when it would snow, first

11:31thing I would do, kids were going out there to build a snowman. I'm tackling them in a snowbank. Why am I doing that? Because, kid, the winters now, as I fast forward, and I've got a 17-year-old, a 14, and a 12-year-old. Well, first of all, my 17-year-old could slam me in the snowbank today, right? I mean, he's huge. He's bigger than me. So, that opportunity is gone. And so, you've got to think like if winter is your thing, right? You're probably not going to be ripping snowboarding at 90. So, that that trip that you wanted to take to Japan to go hella skiing, Katelyn, is probably tough in your 80s and 70s, right? So, that's something you got to think about, but we've got to think about different seasons as it relates to time. Anything you'd add to that, Katelyn?
It's um and and where I think you're going to go is the the compounding effect of not just you as the human, right? You're talking to me, you know, as a 41year-old I'm going to ski, but chances are at 72 I'm not going to ski, right? I don't want to break. Not that, you know, at 72 you're not physically capable. You just may not be inclined to take the same

12:35activities or risk loads, right? But I think where where it's really crazy and it compounds is where you're about to go, which is who do you want to do those activities with
100%. Because they're they're also changing too. So now you look at, you know, Katelyn, I'm a big ocean person. So now you got days in the ocean.
You are not normal. Most people here are going to say like days in the ocean. I'm going to go to the ocean once a year and I'm going to get in there two or three times. This guy, if you're listening to this podcast, one thing you should know is Brett has a lot of ocean swims ahead of him. But still, he says not enough.
I I it's it's one of my ways that I measure success in my life. I'm going to this is honestly is how many days I swim in the ocean.
It's literally one of my success me because I know that if I hit my days as my target,
I know that I'm living the life the way I want to do it. And so the average person, Katelyn, the data would show you if you really research this, the average person spends about two days per year in the ocean if they don't live by it. Okay? Two day on the on average throughout the course of their life. So

13:37they might not go for 5 years and they go to the ocean for 10 days, right? Or whatever that is. But for me, Kayn, um you've I've only got so many days in the ocean again. Ocean I can do later in life yet, right? I I just came back from from Punta Mita for Thanksgiving and my favorite place on earth and I did a lot of a ridiculous amount of water activities, but one of my favorite things is spear fishing. Well, spear fishing when you're free diving to 40 or 50 feet to shoot the fish. Like it is a there is an element of fitness to this and I don't know that I will be doing that at 75 years old, right? So, I'm probably at the peak time in my life, especially be doing with my kids, right? I'm in that moment. I'm in that season where I've got to maximize it. And so I've got to, in other words, I'm putting more pressure, Katelyn, on my time today to do epic things in the ocean with my kids. Why? Because number one, I only have so much time with my house. And number two, we're kind of all at that ideal age. They can do it, and I can still do it. 20 years from now, they can still do it. 20 years from now, I don't know if I can still do it. Right? So,

14:39you just got to think different seasons.
You apply that pressure though, not in in every way. I I'll give the example. Do you remember we were in Florida and then again I I think the other time we were in South Carolina. Each time we take a business trip and we're anywhere near an ocean, we went on a brainstorming business walk and we said we got to get our feet we rolled up our pants and said we have to get our feet in the ocean because it's another check of the box. And then we created what could have been, you know, sitting inside of a meeting room in a hotel. Instead, we went and walked and said, "Let's do this brainstorming session touching the ocean, right? Making every single day or every single moment and looking at it and saying, I can sit in a meeting room anytime. How can I maximize this to get yet another ocean touch, which I think is kind of cool. Like obviously everyone would love to go spear fishing in Punta Mita, but I think you can apply this even on the more what would be considered mundane or you know

15:43just part of your work world. You can incorporate this every single day to get that extra little bit squeezed out like you mentioned with the kitchen towel.
Yeah, I think an epic experience people often associate like well I don't have those kinds of funds or I can't do that. An epic experience could just be going on a walk in the ocean. Katelyn can be let's let's walk over here. Let's walk up and have a coffee. I mean like you there's so many ways to do things that are out of the norm to your point. Sitting in a controlled office and having a conversation just radically different ways I think about. So you know ocean swims. Here's one football seasons. You know I'm not a huge sports nut which you know uh but there I had a friend of mine and his dad's thing the biggest thing in life that they did together growing up was they watched the Super Bowl. Okay. biggest thing in life. Again, Katelyn, you're 41. You got 49 Super Bowls left. That's just a fact. Okay, we can't add more Super Bowls in that time. It's just that's how it works. They do it once a year. They're not five a year. There's one. And so I said, "Hey, are you going to watch the

16:44Super Bowl with your dad this year?" He said, "I can't make it. I got something going on. I got some buddies or whatever we're doing." And I was like, "Wow, you know, how old's your dad?" You know, "Well, my dad's 85." I said, "Well, does it change, you know, as a good friend, does it change the math if you realize that you only got five Super Bowls left with your dad? Do you think you're being selfish?" Right? Because a good friend challenges people's thoughts. And he's like, "Oh my god, you're right. Why don't I just bring my buddies over my dad's?" I'm like, "Boom, great idea." And now they never miss it. Right? It's a result of thinking about, right? You can't go, you know, once, you know, my dad's 84, right? So I got maybe six Super Bowls left. That was our thing. I've got to make sure that I maximize this and think about it differently. Now, not everyone's thing is football and the Super Bowl with your parents or the people you love, Katelyn. But my my challenge to everyone listening or watching this is what is your thing?
Yeah.
Figure out the thing. What was the ritual with the people you love? And now, how do you make sure you go do it?
Katelyn, taco Tuesdays are critical. You only got about 2500 of these left. You

17:46got to make the right decision. You can't mess it up. Are you going to get, you know, are you going to get the fish tacos? Are you going to go with the El Pastor? Those are big decisions, right? You've only got so many. And you got to think about it. And so, Katelyn, I want to tell I want you to tell your story here in a second. The picture on my screen is is my parents and my family. Um, and so here's the data around your parents. Uh if you don't live in the same city as your parents, which Katelyn didn't at the time that we that we that she first went through this exercise, uh on average you will see your parents 10 days per year, five times per year, two days per time, 10 days total. So you know my dad is 84, meaning if I don't live in the same city as him, which I do not, um the data would say in his 6 years lefty list of 90, right? Times 10 days is 60 days. I've got 60 days left with my dad, right? That's the raw data. I did this again 15 years ago and I did the math and while it was better 15 years ago cuz I just

18:47increased, you know, added 10 each year, it it wasn't enough, right? And so I had a way to approach it. But Katelyn, I really want you to tell your story here because you did live in the same city.
You went through this exercise that I put our whole team through
and at the end of it, you made some pretty what I'm going to call significant changes in that relationship. And so I'd love for you to share that.
It went through Yeah. it it went through a a few different challenges along the way as well. So about 10 years ago, you were teaching this at our brokerage down in Phoenix and um you know the first half of this at the time I was like 31 maybe 32. I was like I have gobs of time. I'm just trying to get, you know, my career off the get, you know, I'm working on these specific things and I didn't take it as heavy for the first portion and then you talked about kids and I don't have kids. I I certainly didn't have children back then and so I was like, well, I don't have these limited uh moments that, you know, hey, it's it's my, you know, my daughter or

19:50my son may only have so many Christmases left inside my home. So, I didn't have that limitation. And so I was just listening to you teach it and then you got to the parent section and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Um my dad had me when he was 51 years old and so I always had kind of an older dad and at the time that you shared this uh my dad was probably around 81 82 years old and I went oh no I don't have a ton of time left with my dad. Also, my dad had had health issues, right? He had his first heart attack when I was still in diapers. He wasn't as healthy. Um, yeah, he had a lot of heart he'd had like three heart attacks, Brett. I'll just I'll share that. And, um, he was still playing golf, still doing great, but I knew that the chances of him living to be 110 were slim to none. And so, this hit me like an absolute ton of bricks. and you shared the story of if they live in town with

20:53you, you get all of this extra time, but if they live somewhere else, it's going to be limited to about 10 days per year on average. And at the time, my parents were going back and forth to Phoenix. They were coming into Scottsdale for about half of the year. And I thought, I've got a great twist here. I'm just going to totally max out my time when they're here. So, I started playing golf with my dad a whole lot more. Um, I do really simple things like meet them. They they lived just right by in AJ's, which is a grocery store in Phoenix. And so I knew my dad would go there in the morning and he would have a croissant and a cup of coffee with my mom and they would sit outside. So my way to work, I started just boopping in and seeing him for that cup of coffee. And then Brett, they put their house up for sale and said, "We're not going to be in Arizona anymore." And I was like, "How am I possibly going to cheat the system now? They're going to be in Dallas and I'm in Arizona. I'm back to 10 days and that stinks. So, I started creating quarterly visits to go see my parents to try to cheat it again, right? I've got to get that extra time with my dad because the one thing I don't want

21:56to have happened is when he passes away, I have regrets that I didn't get as much time with him as I wanted to. I'd spent my whole life thinking I had the total advantage of having an older dad. I thought it was the coolest. I basically got to have a dad that had experienced so much of life already. And I always thought of him as like a a wise grandpa and a dad allin-one. But now it was working against me to have an older dad. And so I started to do these quarterly visits where I would spend extra time in Dallas. And I started cheating the system that way. And then CO hit and I was like, how am I going to get any extra time with my dad now? I can't fly. He's older and if I did fly, he doesn't really want me to bring all of the world's germs into his home. How am I going to get this done? And I remember brainstorming with you a little bit about it and you said, "Figure out how to spend time with him the way that he wants to." And my dad hated to talk on

22:59the phone. It just wasn't his thing. So conversations would be super short. And what we ended up doing was every morning um I would get on my computer and start my work day and he would be doing his but we were on the computer via Zoom as well. And so in the morning as I'm having my coffee and getting things started he was working in his business and I said let's have coffee together. So two or three times a week we would have coffee together via Zoom and I knew what he wanted to talk about which were two primary things. he wanted to talk about golf or he wanted to talk about his business and what he was working on and our business and what we were working on. And during that time together, I was able to learn so much from him about his history, his past about growing up. I didn't even know we had a title company at the time. My dad worked for a title company like in the 1950s and I was like, how does that even happen? So I was able to cheat the system and get so much extra time with

24:02him no matter the obstacle because of this exercise. And so you know and unfortunately he did end up passing away about four years ago, four and a half years ago. But the day that he passed away, I didn't have any regrets. I I wrote you a letter about it because it truly changed my life going through this exercise and realizing that you can make sure that you get every moment that you are looking for in your life with the people you care about and you love. You just have to engineer your life accordingly. And so, thank you, Brett, for um walking me through this years ago. and now I have just the coolest memories and no regrets of missed time with my dad even though it was only a few years that I was able to make these adjustments. So, I would say anyone who's listening, whether it's time with your kids and maybe you think, you know, hey, my my son's 17, he's almost out of here, right? Make that senior year with him absolutely epic, right? Make that time

25:04that you're spending with him, have epic moments, one-on-one time with him. Know that you can cheat the system. No matter how compressed you think of time you have left, you have plenty to make the changes as long as you start making them now. And so that would be kind of my my comment to anyone who's listening. Take a minute to reflect and step back to the five or or three changes that you want to make to maximize your life and start right now. And then any obstacle that comes up, take a step back and think, okay, how can I use this to my advantage to change it completely? And so, um, yeah, it was this is like my favorite exercise of all time. Someone asked me to be on this podcast. I was like, "You better believe I'm going to be on it. This is awesome."
Well, it's um what I love about it is and you hit the key point, which is how do you live without regret? And I think so many people, right, when you you know, you go back and if you read that, you know, the four the rats of the dying, um you know, really they wish they had more time with the people they

26:08loved is one of the biggest things. And so realizing I want I want everyone every listener uh if you're listening or you're watching this to realize number one the average math says you don't live in the same city it's 10 days a year right and so you've got to go realize no one's listening to this podcast because you want to be average and so how do you go Katelyn says cheat the system how do you go skew the math and because you can bend the math any way you want it and so realizing it's critical uh is so important. I I did something similar with my parents, but your story is just so much more impactful that you changed. And by the way, you have we've we've got endless emails and letters have been people written to me like, "Hey, I I decided I'm going back every Christmas to spend time with my parents and then four years later they passed away and it changed everything." And so it's a really big exercise. You go to the next one, Kaylee, talk about kids. Here's pictures of my kids on the screen. The data would tell you you will spend if you for those that are, you know, listening that have kids, 90% of the time in your entire life that you'll spend with your kids, you'll do with it

27:09while they live with you under your roof, right? Well, again, I've got a 12, 14, 17year-old. So, I hate that math, right? And so, we were at our recent mastermind, Katelyn, and one of the uh I go, you know, Christmas in Kawaii. I do Thanksgiving in Punta Mita. I have all these rituals in my life that exist forever. And I mean down to like I mean they're I mean we're we're crazy about rituals because it what makes it last. So one of our mastermind members said, "Yeah, Brett, my wife's got a real challenge. She has to have the kids. We got to have them in our living room and they got to open presents in our house." I said, "Cool. You built a really cool tradition that'll end when they leave." Now, let me ask you a question. My tradition is not based on my home. So when they don't live there, my kids will always go to Kauaii with us because they're going to go, "That's just what we do." When they go get married, they're going to be like, "What do you guys do? You sit around this house?" No, we're going to Kauaii. Bring your family. Everybody's doing it. Like literally, if you told I mean, if you tell Jagger, "Hey, we're not going to Kawaii." He'd be like, "What?" Right. It'd be crazy. So
freight the tank reference about going

28:13to Hawaii.
Is it Is it a what?
A Fright the Tank. Everybody's doing it.
What? So, you know, he would literally go um he like, "No, we absolutely like he's going to he's going to be dating some girl and be like, "Well, we have to go to court. We just cannot do it. It's my I've been doing my whole life." And so, what I would encourage people to do is what traditions and rituals can you build with your kids that maybe survive the time they're with you. If you want to cheat the math, right? Other things to do, are you into, like Haya said, she got into what her dad was into, go get into what your kids are into, right? I have gone to the weirdest concerts that you can possibly imagine recently, but big music guy. I'm a country music person. My kids are into rap or whatever. I'm like, dude, I'm all about Don Toliver. Let's go. Then I was like, real quick, is it just Don Toliver? And then I got to go spend a week before the concert, you know, getting into tour up or whatever. Um, that's a great reference for the kids out there. So, you know, I do know my I do know my Don Toliver, my DT. But the point is, how do you go get more time with the people you

29:17care about? You got to think differently about your kids. All right, Katelyn, the the screen saver on my phone that's been there for some time. Uh, is this quote here by Confucious? This is, they say, "We have two lives. The second begins when you realize you only have one." Sadly, Caleb, you don't get eight chances at life. You don't get to run this one back and get to the end and transport. It's not like a video game where you get to go back to the start and start your quest over. Sadly, at the end, it's over. And so, for all of us out there, are you living an epic life and are you thinking differently to get where you want to go? And it's about creating moments that are magical. And on the screen right now, if you want to go look at it, is like we're swimming with a pig and there's a lot of fish and ocean stuff in my life. That's what's epic for me. But do you know what's epic for your family? And are you creating those epic moments? And so, Katelyn, when it comes to time, that's the setup for we realize time's finite now. Now, we're going to go to how do we think about building our world out so that we get the time with the people we want. We

30:20get our big rocks accomplished and we're really living in fulfillment. So, we're at that place where now we're going to go to the action, the tactical part. Your quote here, Brett, your mantra here that you say all the time is more, I think, more valuable when applied to this lesson than anything else. And it's your life is the sum of your choices. Nothing more and nothing less. Right? That's I always hear that and I think of disciplines, money management, making the right choices in that component. But when you apply it and overlay it with time and how you're choosing to spend your time, I think it's the most valuable of all. It applies to all three resources: time, influence, or talent, and money. But most importantly, I think it applies to time, how you choose to spend it, and how you choose to plan it.
Uh, a thousand a thousand%. by that that

31:25will be that that's what's going on my grave set is your life is a sum of your choices nothing more nothing less and so we want if we want we want different outcomes in our life right we got to make different choices one way to think about the things you want in life Warren Buffett who by the way will go down is one of the greatest business people but he'll he'll also go down as one of our great philosophers of our of of this era and so he's got this 525 rule and he talks about Katelyn you want to make a list of the 25 things you want to do in your entire life. Okay, the big these are huge, massive things you want to do. And then he says you should take that list of 25 and you should circle the top five of them wherever they are on that list that matter most to your soul as the words he uses. Um, now Caleb, you got 25 things. You've circled the top five. Now he said you should literally delete and never think about the ones you didn't circle. those 20, never even think about them again because they'll take time away from the five things that really matter. And the point of this

32:28quote, right, it's priority. You can do anything you want, you can't do everything, right? So, we've got to and and when you look at multiple things um and you chase too many things at the same time, you won't likely get any of the things you wanted. You know, I've been um friends with and coached by a very known person in our space, Katelyn, which uh every is beyond a household name, uh Gary Keller. And in the book, The One Thing, if you remember, it opens up with if you chase two rabbits, Katelyn, you never catch one. And so, in life, we got to think about those five things. We got to safeguard those. The things we really wanted for our life. We can't run at all of them. We got to say no to a lot more things so we can say yes to the things that really matter. And so Katelyn, we're going to talk about how do you set up your year? If we realize time is finite, we realize we got to think further out. We got to think in decades, not days. In this case, we're going to think at least 12 months out. How do we go about setting up our year? And the way to think about this is there's um there's two jars on the screen right now. Um, and that this

33:31teacher walks into a class of first graders and he's got these two big jars and he's got a a bunch of rocks and he goes up there and he puts the rocks in a jar and they fill it and he asks the kids, "Is it full?" And they say, "Yes, jar is full." He says, "Cool." And he has a little bit smaller gravel. He pours it in the jar and it fills all around the larger rocks. I mean, now this thing's packed. And he goes, "Is it full?" And the kids say, "Yes, it's full. We get it. the jar is full. And he goes, "All right." He takes some sand and he pours that in and that fills around the smaller rocks and the bigger rocks in the bottom. Is it full? And the kids are like, "Yes, it's full. We got it." And he goes, "Then he takes water and he pours it all the way in." And it fills the top. Is it full? The kids say, "Yes." He goes, "Now it's full. What's the lesson?" The kid's like, "I don't know. You just threw some rocks and gravel and dirt in a jar." And he said, 'N no, the point of the the exercise was if you want to get the most out of your life, you got to put the big rocks in first. And so often, I think in life, Caleb,

34:34people are filling their thing with water only to realize they had so much more they could have done, right? They put in the the trivial, the things that weren't really meaningful, and they spent their whole life doing those things, right? I'm too busy. I'm doom scrolling on screen time. I'm just wasting my life on social media. I'm not present. You go into a restaurant today and you see people just totally disconnected and they're four people are out to dinner on their on their phones. They're they're not spending the time with the people they want. They're not living a purposeful mission. They're living a life by default, not a life by design. And the way you change all that is, Kendall, we got to get really good at putting those big rocks up. And so what I want to do in the next section of this podcast is walk people through, you know, as we're filming this at the end of the year, this is the annual exercise that we've already, as you know, my calendar's already booked out for for 2026 and we're starting to look at 2027. Um, why do I do that? Why would I want to plan so far out? Because I want to make sure I get to do all the things I want to do to get the most out of life. I have to plan way out because I've got obligations in terms of work. I've got some personal obligations. I got lots of

35:36things that I do. and the rituals and the things that I want to protect. And if I don't get far enough out, Katelyn, I won't get to make those choices. And so, as we think about our years, we've got to get really clear on what those big rocks are. So, if we start living 12 months out, my cardinal rule is the wealthy people I know don't take a vacation tomorrow. So, you the joke I always had about six or seven years ago, one of my buddies like, "Dude, you want to go skiing tomorrow?" I said, "Hey, I'll save you some time. You never need to call me with that request because the answer is always no. There's nothing on my tomorrow was flighted eight months ago, right? My, you know, my Monday might have been booked a year ago. So when you say something like, "Oh, can you do this tomorrow?" What it tells me is you're not living a purposeful life, right? You're living a life by default. There's no judgment in that. But you're not going to the high achiever, uh, the ultimate high achiever is thinking differently. They already had plans set up. So I have a question on this. So most people, most of our listeners are

36:41entrepreneurs, right? They have um sought to be in our industry uh which we're in the real estate industry for freedom, right? They want the ability to not be locked in to a 9-to-f5. They want the ability to work when they want to work. They love our get-free mission and what you speak to all of the time. Um, however, what you're saying is the opposite of that, Brett. People may look at our get free mission, right? The freedom of the work you do, where you do it, who you do it with. It's the freedom of choice, right? What you're describing may not sound to most like freedom. How do you look at it? Or or how is this choice the ultimate freedom? I love the saying that freedom I find my freedom in my disciplines. It frees me because I can make the choices. But how are you looking at it when you're saying you're blocking your calendar 14 months in advance or 18 months in advance?

37:47How does that tie into the freedom component of what we're doing? Well, I would say this for so you know, most real estate folks, right, came to our industry. If you're a real estate professional, whether that's an agent, investor, a lender, or just an entrepreneur, you likely got into business for freedom. And Ken, the first thing you realize when you get into business for freedom, uh, is that the first thing you have to do is have a ton of discipline. You're going to give up all that freedom. And so, you you you alluded to it. To me, the discipline of this exercise creates the freedom I want in the future. If I don't do this and live an extremely disciplined life, um, I won't get to pick the thing. So, I think I'll have more issues with freedom in the future by not doing this. Set another rate, Katelyn. I mean, I see so many folks that, you know, you can life has costs and you've heard me say this a lot, and you the the trick of life is you get to choose when you pay them. You can pay them when you're early, you can pay them, you know, when you're older, right? It's it's a choice that there's no judgment in a comment, but everyone pays. As an example, one of the

38:50challenges of life, Katelyn, is a lot of people in their early 20s, you hear people in their 20s, they go, "Gosh, just go be free, you know, do whatever you want and then, you know, this is the time in your life where Katelyn, you should go backpacking in Europe. This is the moment and spend five, you know, and take seven years to get your degree and and do whatever." And hey, cool. But at some point, you're going to pay a price for that. You know, my journey is slightly different. Uh I can tell you that from age 20 to 30 um a lot of that period of time I worked about 14 hours a day. Um in mind I didn't have kids till I was in my late 20s but kid I was in it and I I I mean I could tell you the amount of times I went out drinking at night in age 20 to 30 probably that whole decade was seven. Uh I could say in the last year I've done it seven times. And the difference is though, I had to get all my money right, my career, all the foundation established because there was a lot of things the way I wanted to set up my life. And I was able to figure that out

39:52starting at 20 years old. And so what I would tell people is that, you know, when I tell Cooper, hey, take some time, he's my 17-year-old, hey, take some time to do your, you know, like go to college if you want to spend six months after college to go do something, but you need to get going, right? Get going, make it happen. You will love the backhill. You will love skiing downhill once you climb that mountain and just climb it as early as you can. Again, that might not be for everyone, but just realize you're going to have a cost in life you got to pay. Do you want to be grinding it out at 70 or do you want to be chilling at 70? And it's all a choice by how you spend your time today. Today,
I think the difference is how you view freedom. You and I view freedom and I think most of our listeners view freedom of you have the ability to make a choice which is the bottom line of that mission statement the freedom of choice and you have the ability to execute it. So freedom means that you can make happen in your life what you want to have happen in your life. And for me that's incredibly disciplined and purpose driven. It

40:57doesn't mean that you're floating around like a feather just influenced to go in any direction at any time. I don't think that's freedom. Being able to flit around from one thing to another without purpose or without a specific path is the opposite. You're actually you it's a loss of freedom to be able to do those things. And so I actually think the freedom is the discipline of saying these are the things that are important to me. I'm making that choice. I'm choosing today that I want to go on a well this is a perfect example 10 years with you. You gave me the incredible gift of going to Bise. I was able to plan that in March I'm going to Bise as a gift from you to as a and I'm so excited about it. I was able to plan and sit with you. We sat up at Pinetop when I was up there for a business trip with you and planned out literally all the fun things that we want to do that Russ and I find so important. We want to fly fish. We want to go to these specific places. We want to go to the Mayan

41:58rinses. We want to do all these things. We were able to plan it 6 months in advance in a really strong way. However, if I said to you, we're going to Bise tomorrow, I wouldn't be able to achieve those things.
If you said 3 weeks from now, number one, the the room's not available. Number two, the flights suck. The tour you once booked cuz you want to do the epic things, Caleb. those epic things because there's a finite amount of them, they're taken.
Correct? So, if you plan out and you do things in a very sequential way the way you're asking us to do them here, which are those big rocks first, which we're about to go through how to set up your big rocks. If you actually plan them, my point in this rant is that is where the freedom lies. It doesn't lie in being able to go skiing tomorrow with your buddy because that's going to kind of be slapped together in a weird way. What you want to do is plan really incredible, purposeful things with the people you love in places that you love doing the things you want to do. And in

43:00order to execute that, you've got to get your act together and plan it out 12 to 18 months in advance at a minimum.
100%. So, let's start there. Katelyn, we So, I I buy these wall calendars off of Amazon. They're about five feet wide or three feet long. It's huge, right? And and you might be looking at going, "Brett, why do I I use a digital calendar on Google?" I'm telling you, you got to do this exercise. Everyone needs to go to Amazon. We'll drop a link in the show notes, the one that that I think you should buy. And the point of this though, it allows you to visually see what's going on. And so, the first place I want everyone to go when you're thinking about living 12 months out is when are you gone? I want you to start with the big rocks of your life being when you're recharging your battery. Vacation with your family, your friends. block them out. And first of all, if you're not able to block off four weeks per year, Katelyn, as an entrepreneur, you're doing it wrong. And I'm going to say that you're doing it wrong. Everyone, they're going to tell me, "Oh, I can't do it." I I mean, you know,

44:01Katelyn, we taught this in our mastermind. No question. There's going to be some grinder in there going, "You don't understand, Brad. I just kid a lot." Oh, yeah. How many How many homes are you selling on New Year's Day? How many loans are getting funded on Thanksgiving? How many people want to buy, you know, sell their home to you on 4th of July? I found it's no one, Katelyn, is what I found in in years of doing this. And so, if you block off from, I'm telling you, from December 20th to January 5th in your business, nothing will happen by you being gone. Yeah, you could sit there and grind it out and try to just tap that. You know, I used to be that guy in an effort of squeezing everything out. I was swimming upstream trying to get more done. I saw Grant Cardone, who I love by the way, made a post about grind it all out all the way through January. I'm like, nah, it's just not the way it work. Because no one's do like again, you our businesses rely on other people and those other people aren't there doing the thing during those period of time. You could be gone from the Saturday before Thanksgiving to the Sunday

45:02afterward. You'll never miss it. Fourth of July, take that week off. Memorial Day, Labor Day. If you start traveling around holidays when no one's there anyway, you can get your four weeks right there, right? And it will not matter to your business. So go on there. I take Katelyn. I'm I'm an extremist here as many know. Um I started about 12 weeks of when I'm gone, blocked off, immovable as you know. I got no speaking engagements. I'm not traveling. I'm not speaking at our events, other people's, whatever. I'm not doing it because I've got my big rocks. You see, I think on this one it might be all yellow. And then I go to my and I also go to my cabin and live up there for two and a half months. Uh now I'm up there. I'm working on, you know, I'm not just taking off that entire time, but I am living up there, not in my office. So I want everyone out there, get this calendar and go block off your vacations. When are you gone? By the way, Kayen, we're not just blocking it off. We're blocking it off with where we're going. And I would encourage level two of this because I would block stuff off and I know some of our listeners will go in there and cancel it. You get

46:04close to the vacation, you're three months out, you're like, "Ah, I got to cancel." My trick to that, and not only do I book everything in Europe, I pay for it. Book it. Pay for it. Because the pain of cancellation, canceling a car, room, hotel, some of it you won't get back. It's too painful. And so, it will force you. In the early days, I had to force myself to go because I would have said I was a workaholic who everything was about work. And while a great strategy, I could have accomplished much more because all of my and the other point I want to make, Katelyn, we're going to come back to this. My ideas, my thinking time where I get to read, where I go solve the challenges of our companies are actually when I'm gone. You know, it turns out I'm not when I'm grinding in my office. It's not the best place to solve big problems. For, you know, if you're listening and you think about when was the last time you had an idea in the shower? Well, why does the idea come to you in the shower? cuz you got whatever 10 or 15 minutes, there's no electronics, you're sitting there thinking about nothing and all of a sudden an idea you're like, "Oh my gosh, I solved that problem." Right? It's the same thing on vacation when you're

47:07there. If you're depending on what you're reading and you're just thinking about your business and allowing yourself time to breathe, you could think of really great ideas and you could think of solutions and you're spending time with people that you love. So, all right, Katelyn, we got our vacations. We're locked in there. We've locked them off. We got them paid for. Now what's the next thing you got to do? We got to focus on your education. You know the it's been said that the difference between who we are today and who we are 5 years from now are the books we read and the people we meet. So set another way right I'm going to use as an education front. I believe the difference between are the books we read and the events we attend. I believe that's who how we're different because everything we know everything we believe are getting the results that we're currently getting. And for most of us high achievers, we want more in the future than we're getting today. And so we've got to have a diff higher level of consciousness. We've got to be thinking about things differently. So you need to book two events a year minimum. Self-help, Katelyn, out of your city. Why out of your city? Because if you go

48:09to the event in your city, you're going to cut the event short. You're going to try to meet someone for lunch. You show up late one day. You get out of your city, out of your comfort zone, go somewhere and play full out in a multi-day event. One of the events I believe should be getting better at your craft, whatever you do. So that industry event, if you want to get better at marketing, there's an argument. Get better at your wealth, we've got the best mastermind that exists out there. If you want to get better at some other specialty thing, go to that event and get great. The second event you should attend every year is how do you get better at being a human being, right? Just better at this condition that is called being human. One of my favorites, I love Tony Robbins. If you haven't been, I believe everyone should go to Unleash the Power Within. I think it should be mandatory that all humans go to it because you will leave there a different person. It's a multi-day event. I feel like they do put you in a trance in a great way. You'll walk on fire. You'll do a bunch of stuff, but you will come back different. And so, you've got to block out. So, we got our vacations, Katelyn. Now, we've got when we're going to grow and get better. So,

49:11what's left? What's left is work, right? Now we're going to fill. So we put the big rocks in was our vacation. This the little slightly smaller rocks were uh when we're going to grow and our work is the sand and water. We're going to fill around the things that matter. Uh I like strategizing on my calendar where I'm no more than 45 to 90 days out from my next thing that's fun. So if you break apart your year, what's pulling me forward all the time is I've got something to look forward to. Human beings, we love the memory dividend of the past, but we need things that pull us forward. And looking forward to something is one of life's most powerful forces. So, Katelyn, we got to have more things in our life that we're really looking forward to. And so, strategizing that your next vacation is not that far out. Anything you want to add to those three buckets, Katelyn, before we move on?
This has been um not only, you know, you've done this for How long have you done this, Brett? 15 years. 20 years

50:14
probably like four I mean I was always 20 I was doing it like 15 years ago I formalized like the calendar and the whole process and made it like you know an annual ritual.
I've worked with you for over 10 years. I known you for I would say 12 or 13 years and you've done this has been in your office behind your you know you have your obviously um your whiteboard and everything there. this has been hanging in your office this exact same way since I've met you. Um, and at first, I'll be honest, I thought it was weird and I thought that that was a very strange way to plan everything. You know, we pride ourselves on, you know, spontaneity and who wants to be that structured and I don't have kids. So, I was like, he's obviously doing that because he has kids and he's got to work around spring breaks and those types of things. And like most things we, you know, between you and I, we call it like a seed being planted. When you tell me something, this seed got planted, you know, call it 12 or 13 years ago when I

51:16first saw this and I did not take to this exercise right away. I understood the concept of it. I understood what you were saying. Um, and like I got the methodology, but I didn't apply it. I didn't actually go and sit down and block those things out. And it wasn't until just a few years ago that I did start doing it and that I did get the calendar. Um, we actually did it at our mastermind. We got this calendar for absolutely everyone. I think we flew them all the way to Nashville. I think it was our Nashville be wealthy mastermind and everyone sat down with the markers and planned it out. And so that was the first time, if I'm being totally honest, that I actually went and did it. And my life really did evolve and change to become much more purposeful through this. Then when I hit 40 about a year ago, a year and a half ago, uh I I cranked it up even more and applied even more pressure to it to where now I can say, you know, my sister

52:21or my mom or Russ, they may come to me and say, "Hey, could we do this?" Or, you know, we're looking to to pick and date for our family to get together for these components. And it's really easy for me to look at my life and say, "Here's the available dates that I have for that. Here's the plan for that. And if you guys need something that's gonna be spontaneous, like, can you go tomorrow to watch my niece Haley's softball game? I may already have picked that that's my day to play golf cuz that was what was important to me. Doesn't mean Haley's not important. It means I picked another activity to do with Haley on that specific day. So, it allowed me to live so unbelievably purposefully to where as we started this whole conversation around time and not having any regrets, thinking through it is really important. actually doing it. Putting the calendar together and telling the people that you love that you're going through this exercise and you want them to strategically be a part of your life and you care about them so much that you

53:23want to plan that time with them 12 months out should be the ultimate compliment and give them the give you the freedom that when things come up last minute that you have to say no to them. There's no more guilt for it because you've gone to the people that are most important in your life and planned these 12 or 18 months in advance to make sure you've set aside the time to do the things you want to do with the people you want to do in a way that you're absolutely going to love and make it epic and the most impactful. It was the ultimate freedom tool for me of the guilt of could you, would you, can we do this tomorrow? No, I have these blocks or as Warren Buffett said, these five things that are the most important to me and I've set my life up to achieve them. So, I have the freedom to make that choice, the freedom to execute it, and then again, the freedom to say no to the things that don't allow me to achieve it. And for me, that was the release of the guilt of can I do something right

54:26now? No. because it's going to compromise the plan I've put together for my next 12 months.
I think that's so good. And I bet you now I I I would guess from your experience, I bet you those people come to you further out, right? Because they realize, hey, Katelyn's planning further out, I've got to think a little differently about, right? And so because you're living so purposeful, you can you get to spend more quality time with people than if you didn't do it this way. And so the analogy I'll use, some people say, "Well, Brad, I mean, you don't understand. I I take my kids to school every day. I drive them there. You know, that hour it's I spend an hour with them every day. I'm like, "Okay. Um, do you believe that all time's equal?" In other words, it's an hour an hour no matter what. And they'll say, "Yes." I go, "Cool." I respectfully I completely disagree. An hour is not an hour because I have spent an hour doing something that created nothing. You know, connectivity. It wasn't a great moment, right? Like me to driving my kids to school. Not a high impact activity. I think it's raw chaos. as opposed to an hour playing a board

55:29game just engaged looking and playing with them. What's which one is going to create more moments, right? Going on a walk or and being engaged or some activity where they're on their phone and checked out. And so the point is not all time's the same. You can actually have less time with someone and have way bigger impact and way more moments. So it's not quantity of time, Katelyn, it's quality, right? How do we get more engaged? And so I think the in summary to wrap up this podcast episode, one of my favorite business lessons is the fisherman and the businessman. And so I'm going to read, you know, this version of the story. Um, a man was on vacation in a small coastal v village when he saw a fisherman rowing back to shore with a small catch. Great catch, the businessman said. How long did it take you to catch them? Not long, the fisherman replied. Well, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more? The businessman asked. The fisherman shrugged. I catch enough to support my family. What do you do with the rest of your time? The businessman pressed. I sleep late. I fish a little. I play with

56:32my kids. I take a siesta with my wife. And at night, I stroll into the village. I drink wine and play guitar with my friends. I have a full and busy life. The businessman laughed. I have an MBA. I could help you. You should fish longer every day. With the extra money, you could buy a bigger boat. With a bigger boat, you can catch more fish. Then you could buy several boats, hire people, and build a fleet. And then what? The fisherman asked. Then, the businessman said, you could open a processing plant, control distribution, export worldwide, and move to a big city to run your expanding company. How long will that take? The fisherman asked. Maybe 15 or 20 years, the businessman said. And then what? The fisherman asked. Then you'll be rich. The businessman said you could sell your company, retire, and move to a small coastal village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and at night stroll to the village, drink wine, and play guitar with your friends. The fisherman looked at him. Isn't that what I'm doing already?

57:37And I think it's such an interesting um it's such an interesting story, Katelyn, because I think so many times in life we may have some of the things we already want and yet we're out there chasing things that social media or society says we should have as opposed to figuring out what the fisherman already did. The fisherman figured out what he really wanted out of life and it wasn't actually tied to more money. more money actually in this story would create pain for the fisherman because if he had more money and he and he goes and buys enough stuff around his house at some point he's slave to those things. And so I think it's such a great story to remember what we're playing for. Build your life a year out. Get clear on what matters. Get clear on the people that matter. And then use money as a vehicle to experience more of life. experience more uh with your with your friends, with your family, and create more epic moments. And as we're wrapping up, Katelyn, any thoughts that come to mind

58:40as we get ready to close out?
Just the same mantra, right? It's the it's what weaves through everything that that we get to talk about on this podcast and and the people that you interview. Our mission is get free, right? The freedom of the work you do, where you do it, who you do it with, and that freedom of choice. Overlay that with those three resources in life and apply this type of discipline in all of those resources and you can have anything you want. What's it how is it that you you say it so perfectly. You can have everything that you want. You just can't have it all right now. It's about the choices you make, the way you plan things out, and doing it in a sequential, consistent way can live lead to living an incredible life. So, sometimes it's the hard decisions or the discipline to sit down and do exercises like this that allow you to live the next 12 or 18 months with incredible clarity. So, I'm so excited to do this. I have not done

59:42it yet so far this year, Brett, but I will have it done before the first of the year, and I can't wait. All right, as we're wrapping up and you're listening to this, stop what you're doing. Stop right now. Scroll to your Apple or Spotify and click subscribe to our podcast because you don't want to miss things like this. I can't tell you the impact that this exercise had on my life. Go get the calendar from the show notes. Do the exercise. Start living a year out and start living a life by design and not a life by default. I'm Brett Tanner. That's Katelyn Mitchell. This is the Be Wealthy Podcast and we'll see you back here next