Win Today

#239 | The Little Things Are The Big Things

• Season 6

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The Little Things Are the Big Things explores how consistent small actions create the biggest wins in performance, business, and personal growth. Using examples from marathon training and elite performers like Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods, we show how mastering fundamentals builds confidence under pressure. We also expose the hidden enemy—consistent justification—and how daily delay quietly erodes identity, momentum, and results. This episode delivers a practical framework for replacing excuses with disciplined action that compounds over time.

Key Takeaways:

  • Small daily disciplines outperform occasional heroic efforts
  • Consistent justification is the fastest way to stall progress
  • Mastering fundamentals makes big wins inevitable

https://www.finishersecrets.com/RYAN

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Win Today. This show is crafted for those who want to win in every aspect of their lives. Every week you will learn from a renowned thought leader that will share a piece of a winning playbook that you can incorporate into your life. If this show has a positive impact on you and you see value in it, please share it with somebody and leave a rating and review so we can help more people win.

Mastery And Non‑Dual Thinking

Goals Framed Through Marathon Prep

Easy Miles As Core To Success

Elevating Daily Actions’ Importance

Breaking Consistent Justification

Aligning Goals With Values

Obedience As A Yearly Theme

Habit Tracking And Gamification

A Missed Day And Honest Review

Making Gratitude A Keystone Habit

Kobe Bryant: Free Throws As Edge

Tiger Woods: Three‑Foot Putts Matter

Reject “It’s No Big Deal”

Close: Make Small Steps Count

SPEAKER_01

What if the little things in life aren't actually the little things? What if they are in fact the big things? Have you ever had a powerful thought consume you? Whether it's some sort of mantra or something, a quote, a line that has consumed you and really sat with you for a while and you've wrestled with it. I've been on this mastery kick ever since having Brad Stahlberg on the podcast, who is one of my favorite authors, and I love that he introduces non-dual thinking and introduces concepts that we don't believe can coexist, such as rugged flexibility that, hey, to master change, one must be rugged and flexible, things that we don't commonly think about. But when you hear it, it's like, ah, that makes sense, or it makes you think a little bit. So as I've been thinking about life and looking ahead, pondering, doing some deep homework within, but then also looking at how can I be more useful to others and in service of others. And I thought, especially at the beginning of the year, a lot of folks are asking themselves, like, how can I do the big thing? How do I accomplish my big goal? How do I get from A to B and B being the top of a mountain? And we sometimes, from my experience, can think that it's a bunch of big things that create big things. Or the little things don't matter so much because it's all about the big thing. Well, I would like to introduce a powerful thought that may help move forward and may help you take everything seriously and treat it as the big thing. Now, don't take this literally as if you always have to be go, go, go. I'm gonna do my best to uh create useful context for this, but the little things are the big things. The little things are the big things. So what are we talking about here? Think about a goal that you do have or some sort of pursuit that that you're on for 2026. Now I'm sure it's not some little tiny thing, meaning that your goal isn't to run a mile around the block. And hey, if if a mile is the furthest you've ever gone, awesome, good for you. I don't mean to to make it sound like that's nothing, but for for for most, it's probably something at least around a 5k or or above. But let's let's just sit with this for a minute. Let's say that you have a goal to run a marathon, your first marathon this year, or to run a marathon PR. Now, that's a big thing. That's 26.2 miles, that is hours of running in a single effort, and hours of pushing your body and mind to a level that it hasn't been before. Now, with that, to run that marathon at the pace that you want, at the time that you want, that doesn't just mean you show up on race day and go give your best effort that day. What's going to put you on that starting line with the confidence that you can actually go and achieve that thing are hundreds, if not thousands, of easy miles of speed workouts, of tempo workouts, but a majority of marathon prep are a bunch of easy miles and low, slow, boring runs that quite frankly don't seem like a very big deal. Like, what's the big deal in me missing this six mile easy run? It's not 26 miles and it's not at marathon pace, so it's not a big deal. Well, that little thing right there is what is going to help create the big thing that you're going after. Therefore, the little things are the big things. So I don't want you to take what you can perceive as the little things lightly because they play a much bigger role in your life than being a little thing. And the other thing is mentally, if we if we shift this a little bit, now it's easy for us to look at the big things, the big goals, as okay, those are the big things. We don't want to lose those things, we want to get there, and we'll take big and put it on this pedestal, like big goal, metal, business, revenue, etc. And then we'll put everything that's really gonna get us there on this little step, this little stepping stool. Now, if we viewed it with the same amount of importance as the big thing, because at the end of the day, the goal is just the destination, the goal is just the pie in the sky. So, what if we look at this differently? That hey, those easy runs, those are the important runs. Those prospect calls, those outreaches, client outreach, prospect outreach, those are the big things. That's what creates your revenue, that's what allows you to leave the corporate world, that's what allows you to create the business of your dreams. That's what allows you to build new connections with people, like so many things. So it's really just been a breakthrough thought that wow, if we look at the little things as the big things, could this maybe help one person stop skipping the little things and stop looking at the little things as just minor things and then living years of their lives wondering why they're not achieving their goals, why they're not hitting the mark. Because I believe another concept that I've been thinking through the most dangerous place or dangerous states that you can create is the state of consistent justification. Consistent justification. When we think about again, we'll just I'm gonna keep nailing this in the little things, the little six-mile run, the little client phone call, the little prospect outreach, the little request that your spouse, loved one, husband, boyfriend made, the little thing that they've asked for. Well, I'm gonna put that off because it's a little thing and I can pick it up tomorrow. And it's just a little thing, it's not the big thing, it's not the marathon, it's not the great relationship, it's not the thriving marriage. I'm gonna put that off. Well, now we've done it once, so it's gonna be a hell of a lot easier to do it twice, and because we've done it twice, well, we can do it three times, we can do it four times. Because now we've wired in our minds that oh, we can just justify it, it's a little thing. It's it's no big deal. It's not the goal, so it's okay. So by looking at the little thing as the big thing, I don't believe any of you would tell me that if I looked at your goals right now or whatever it is that you're going after, that's deeply meaningful to you. I don't believe any of you would tell me it's okay to put it off to the side. It clearly means something to you for a reason. Whether it's for you, for your family, for your community. It didn't just fall on your goals list because you woke up on one side of the bed and boom, it just popped up there, right? So the little things are the big things. I'll tell you a journey that that I'm on right now. And my word for the year is obedient. And I don't mean obedient like a kid behaving, you know, Ryan, you gotta behave when you go to the grocery store and the restaurant. Now, my mom would would have some uh plenty of things to tell you about me and obedience as a child. I heard that word quite a bit, uh, but with a diss in front of it, disobedient, you disobedient kid. So when I selected that word this year, I thought, man, this my mom's gonna, my mom's gonna get a kick out of this one. But how do you measure obedience? Like, how do you know if you're actually becoming somebody new? And I picked obedience because I feel I'm desiring rather a stronger connection to my values. Not that I've lived away from my values over the years, but there's something in my heart that's pushing me to really cement those even further in stone. And so one thing that is really helping me right now is I have a journal from Finisher Secrets, which I'll link in the in the show notes. So you guys, if you want one, you can check it out. It's a great habit tracking tool, it's a great accountability tool, and you can get a discount using the link on the on the show notes. But the finisher secrets journal, what I'm doing with it every day, and also within the unshakable discipline mastermind community, is we are tracking the the habits that we would like to uphold in a given month, and then we have a score, and and whoever has the the highest score at the end of the month percentage-wise, will get will earn something. One of the easiest ways to become somebody new and to add habits, to upgrade your habits, is to simply gamify that. So how cool is it that not only can you uh become somebody new, but you can do it alongside people because now many of you being competitors don't want to be last. You want to win, you love to win. So you can have a competition with your with your friends or a mastermind group. Who's the best at building habits? But within my journal, I'm looking at things, or rather, I've I've I've got a certain list of activities. Even one of them is did I write a gratitude card to somebody today for the month of February? And then at the very bottom of the finisher secrets page, I have obedience. And I ask myself a question: was I obedient to my values that day? I have a conversation with myself. Was I truly obedient to my values? Did I do the things I said I was gonna do habits-wise? Did I show up authentically to the people that I serve, to the people that I lead? And can I truly say that, hey, today I I was, or today I wasn't. Now, it's been working very well so far for throughout the year. Uh, there's been one day where I honestly could not answer that question because uh as a yes, because I did not act in alignment with my values that day uh in the office, meaning I said some things that I heard about not even in the office, outside the office. I said some things that I should not have said, that I'm not proud of saying, and therefore, you know, having that honest conversation with myself didn't put a check mark on it that day. But overall, knowing that at the end of the day, I'm gonna have that conversation with myself and then look at all the things that did I that I set out to do habits-wise, and did I do them or not, it is helping me transform and upgrade my being. And it is making little things big things, because even not writing a gratitude card today could be a little thing, but it is a big thing in terms of my obedience to myself and my values because I said that's what I was gonna do. So we can you can make yourself a science experiment, and again, you can transform yourself in ways that you may not have believed possible, and it's as simple as writing it down. Now, to highlight the beauty and importance of little things being big things, I was doing some homework and two people that I thought of immediately that many of you will likely appreciate: Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods. Now, they're both known for dominating their sports, basketball and golf, respectively, for winning several championships, setting all of the records, and they were also known for their relentlessness and their unmatched work ethic. Now, what is it that made Kobe nail the clutch shots nine times out of ten? Or what was it that that made Kobe the most trusted person to give the ball to? What was it that made Tiger the most feared golfer in the planet on Sunday, especially in a major championship? It wasn't that Tiger hit a 350-yard drive down the middle of the fairway every single time, and it wasn't that Kobe hit the most three-point shots or the most half-court shots. But if you really dig deep, you'll see that Kobe would hit 1,000 to 3,000 shots per day and wouldn't leave the gym after practice until he hit another 200 to 300 free throws. Not three-pointers, not the cool sexy, glamorous shots, not the half-court shots, two to three hundred free throws. Now check this out. I did some more research. 25% of NBA games come down to less than a one-score margin, meaning that 25% of NBA games that Kobe played in come down to a three points or less margin of victory. So think about the times where Kobe and how many times he went to the free throw line and he shot 85.7% from the free throw line, which is, I believe, one of the best in the NBA all time. It's just a little free throw, right? Think about how many times those free throws created victories for the Lakers, which then propelled them to the playoffs and their championships. Because it wasn't just free throws to Kobe. It wasn't just, hey, we want to win championships. Well, if we want to win championships, then we've got to do every little thing right. And I'm gonna stay here and shoot free throws and have thousands of shots, and he held his teammates accountable to that as well. And look what the Lakers created over the years, especially the three-peat dynasty of the late 90s into 2001, I believe. Look at Tiger Woods, who is the second most winningist on the PGA tour for uh majors, major titles. Nine of the 15 majors that Tiger has won have been decided by less than three strokes. So many of y'all probably know that a golf tournament is four days long, four, eighteen whole rounds. So even missing one putt on each of those days, there's four strokes right there. And some of these tournaments are decided by less than three strokes. So Tiger, not only would he hit thousands of balls per day, he would practice six to ten hours a day. But one thing that I found very interesting about Tiger is that to finish, to finish his day, he would have a circle around around the around the hole, and a three-foot circle with T's. And he would have to make 53-foot putts, basically going around the world, around the around the hole. 53-foot putts before he could go home. Now you're thinking, okay, three-foot putt, that's easy. Well, think about a three-foot putt when it's between you and a master's title, a U.S. Open title. That three-foot putt feels like a 20-foot putt, most likely. And a lot of PGA tour players miss three-foot putts. So Tiger's not out there. Okay, let me see how many 50-foot putts I can make today. And the big sexy thing, the little thing is the big thing. He is not leaving until he makes 53-foot putts. And look at look at look at how important that is. Look at how big that little thing is. Nine out of the 15 major championships were decided by less than three strokes. So imagine if he missed just one four-foot putt per day, Thursday through Sunday of that tournament, he we might not have the Tiger Woods that we did today, that we that we know today. The little things are the big things. I don't want you to live in a state of consistent justification because, oh, it's not that big of a deal. It is a big deal. I'm also not saying don't live your life in that you can't have a rest day, et cetera. But don't allow yourself to look at the things that are going to create the big moments as something minuscule. It is important that you go out and hit your easy run. It is important that you go out and serve your loved ones. It is important that you go out and make the phone calls or the copy or whatever it is to go build the business of your dreams. The little things are the big things. And let that serve you well and win today.

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Ryan Cass

Host