Misogi

And I launched this calendar and it's changed a lot of people's lives.

The Misogi that you talked about is part of the calendar because having a calendar is one thing, but how you use it and fill it out is another.

I think a calendar or a planner, I like this planner because I travel with it.

It goes in my bag and is the best, most honest autobiography of your life.

like it shows you exactly what you did and what you didn't do.

So I, I, I do like, I spend a lot of time mapping it out and I teach people like, you know, you mentioned the Misogi.

That's one of the things I do in my planning system.

I have a very simple way that I plan.

Yeah.

It's like the sort of thing that's like, you know, Jesse Itzler has his like Misogi.

Burning Man in and of itself is a Misogi.

Obviously, this like, you know, peak experience, something that you would do once a year, you know, go and like run a marathon or climb Everest or some, you know, go skydiving, some crazy thing that you've never done before.

Obviously, the whole thing is that.

But within it, every day, you're almost having a series of Misogis.

Totally.

The entire time, you know?

but we're not going to talk too much about that.

We're going to talk about Misogi.

So when I first emailed you in 2020, I did not want to talk about all the numbers and data and figures of sports.

I wanted to talk about Misogi.

And this is a concept you started years ago when you were a med student at Harvard.

So first things first, let's start with my email.

What was your reaction when you get an email from this random journalist wanting to talk this concept of Misogi?

I'm proud of what we've done in sports science, and I love what we do.

Last year in 2022, for me it was an event called Ultraman, which was a 6.4 mile open water swim, 260 mile bike, and a 52.4 mile run.

That was my Misogi.

So going into 2023, the first thing I do is like, what am I gonna do this year that's gonna really define my year outside of work? That's the first thing.

The second thing that I do is something that I call Kevin's Rule.

You know, I was just emailing with his person right before this, 'cause I, I, you know, since I've been doing this, I've heard about this.

So he does the Misogi, the, which-

Yeah

...

And what I tend to do is have that big moment at the end of the year related to the thing I learned.

So is it the tournament I entered, or the pop-up restaurant I did, or whatever, the, the publishing of the novel.

Your version of the, the, quote-unquote, "test," that's his, what he would call the Misogi.

Exactly.

And look, lucky girls, if I'm going to write this book, which is my 20...

We'll get to Misogi's.

If you're a long-time listener, we'll get to Misogi's.

I think 2027, my goal is to write a book proposal and shop it around.

And that's really exciting.

... your brain kinda hits, like, that immediate threat.

Like, oh my gosh, there's this, there's this thing that you've never done before, and I've adopted kind of like this Misogi outlook on 2026.

So I would call that a Misogi at the time, doing something you've never done before.

And then kind of like once you analyze what you need to do over the next weeks and months because you've never done it before, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I gotta get, like, resources, and I need to read, and a training plan, and I gotta get shoes, and I gotta get gear-

Mm-hmm

Right

... a whole bunch of times.

But yeah, I definitely do not run as much as I, as I should for some of these ultras, but that's kinda the point of the Misogi-