Attack 2025 with Intention.

MINDSET OF THE WEEK
Be Intentional

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

It’s a quote from Lewis Carroll and a subtle nugget of wisdom you’ll find tucked away in the original Alice in Wonderland movie.

The unfortunate truth about life is that many people - young and old - don’t know where they’re going.

It’s because most people don’t live life with intention. Most people live life on autopilot not knowing how or why they ended up where they are. Scary stuff.

From my perspective, you don’t need to have your final destination mapped out.

There’s too much about the world (and ourselves) that we don’t know. Things that might inform where we want to go next.

When I’m coaching young people, I typically advocate for direction > destination.

It’s a lot easier as a starting point to understand generally which direction you want to head in. And which actions to take.

You might not exactly know specifically how you want participate in the fight against climate change, but you know you’re interested in playing some role.

That opens up the door to a world of possibilities to act on. You could try your hand at science communications, learn how to use data science to measure changing weather patterns, explore how impact is made from a policy perspective, nerd out on advancements in emerging climate tech, etc.

You don’t know which specific destination you’ll end up at, but you have a map with an arrow pointing in a general direction.

This example, while not difficult, requires intention.

You have to be intentional about being intentional. Very meta.

And I would wager a guess that by default, most people live life without intention.

Family, society, and peer pressure often dictates a lot of our decision making, whether we know it or not.

I’m a great example of that. I share this story often with young people.

Up until I was 21, anytime I was asked what I wanted to do when I was older, the answer was always lawyer.

I enrolled in an undergraduate program that produced a lot of future lawyers, and had associated my identity with that of a future lawyer.

Not because I was being intentional about it. Because that’s what I thought was expected of me.

My family encouraged it. Society applauded it.

And Suits had just come out. I was ready to get my Harvey Specter on 😎.

Fortunately and unfortunately, expectations didn’t line up with reality.

Towards the end my undergrad program, we got the opportunity to spend time shadowing and working alongside different professionals in the legal system.

I hated it.

After almost 4 years of undergrad, and an identity I had created around what I thought would be my future, I had to start all over. That was the unfortunate part.

I added fortunately, because this put me in a position where I had to develop some real self-awareness about the choices I had made to that day. Specifically around why I made them.

Why was I pursuing this path in the first place?

A few layers into that line of questioning revealed what subconsciously I think I knew all along, but never had the courage to admit.

I never really wanted to become a lawyer. But I loved the response I got from people when I told them I did.

This thinking confined me to a single destination where in retrospect, I should have let curiosity explore a general direction.

Luckily, this experience taught me the importance of self awareness, and how to use that to fuel my intention.

I no longer have a specific destination. The general direction is one that allows me to create and pursue opportunities within the domain of helping young people make more informed decisions about their futures.

That direction - and my decision to be intentional about making decisions that steer me in that direction - led me to TKS, back to myBlueprint, and of course this newsletter.

I now know which roads to avoid, and which roads to explore.

Like any big trip you take, you still need to pause from time to time, to check you’re still on the right road. Or to change directions altogether.

The content in this email is designed to help you do just that; to find your direction in 2025.

I’m excited for you to dig into it, and make this year your best year yet.

MEET JESSE
Jesse Itzler on My First Million

I’m a big fan of Jesse. He has a contagious energy.

He’s on my role model advisory board of people I look to for guidance when faced with a tough decision, i.e. what would Jesse do?

Not just because of his varied successes across business (see below), but because of how he balances that with his success in life.

Jesse is married to Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx) and has 4 kids between 9 and 15 years old.

He is very intentional about prioritizing time to create memories with his family.

And to make sure he is in a position as an individual to be present, and be his best self when living life with the people that are important to him.

And he wants to share that system with anyone who will listen.

That’s the intention of Modern Life Skills this week.

Watch this 2 minute clip to get a sense of what Jesse, and this system is all about 👇️ 

3 STEP PLAN
Jesse’s 3 Step Plan

There are five parts to the system. I’d be surprised if it takes you more than 2 hours all in to complete.

💡 Pro tip: It’s an individual activity, but you don’t have to do it alone. I’ve scheduled time with my wife Meredith for us to work through this together over the break.

As far as I can tell, Jesse has only talked about this system in conversation. Meaning it’s not on paper for anyone to easily execute.

I took the liberty of correcting that, and a simple, fillable guide (google doc) now exists to fill in as you listen to Jesse explain how it works.

This will work better with a physical calendar where you can look at your full year at a glance.

Don’t have one? Start without it, complete the guide, but then I would strongly encourage you to map it out, and make it real.

Here are some calendar options:

• Jesse’s Big A## Calendar 

• Amazon option

• Print Your Own (and support Modern Life Skills)

  • 💡 Pro tip: print a bunch and give them away as ‘just because’ new years gifts for the people in your life you want to see crush 2025.

There’s technically 5 steps to the system, but the meat of it happens in Step 3, where you are taking the time to be intentional about:

• Planning 1 year-defining experience (Misogi)

• Scheduling a mini adventure every other month (6 per year)

• Prioritizing a new habit each quarter (4 per year)

You don’t need a physical calendar for this, but it helps.

It can also double as your daily habit tracker - that’s how I used mine this past year.

2025 HERE I COME
The Full Guide

👉️ 👉️ You can access the guide here 👈️ 👈️ 

Sharing is caring. If you use this system, and benefit from it, share it with the people in your life that you care about.

After all, that’s what this life is all about. People.

And we don’t get a lot of years with those people. Be intentional. Make them count.

BONUS
Other Workshops to Explore

Now that you understand the benefit of living an intentional life, and have a charted a direction, I wanted to share some additional resources that might help you on your journey.

Maven (live courses with real-world experts) analyzed 260,000 signups to their platform and 25,000 minutes of learning content from this year.

I’m personally going to be exploring…

• Who Managers Promote and Why

• Two Real Ways to 10x Your Team with AI

• AI Agents & Agentic Workflows

Let me know if you take any that you really enjoyed.