The Undeniable Leader with Rob Cressy

Big Wins Don't Mean You're Done

• Rob Cressy

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0:00 | 12:54

Big wins don’t mean you’re done. It means the next level of you just became available. In this episode of Built For The Game, Rob Cressy shares what happens after the moment of achievement, when momentum fades and standards are tested. Inspired by a powerful principle from Jesse Itzler, he breaks down the mindset it takes to finish the year strong, recommit to your Misogi, and keep building when most people ease up.

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Hey, before we start the podcast, if you're a return listener who gets value from this show, then spread the love and share this with someone exceptional. Whether you shoot them a text or a DM or share on your social media, it would mean the world to me, and this is how we can help each other grow. Sending tons of good vibes your way. When you get a big win in your life, what happens next is often a question that's both on your mind and one that you're gonna get from so many other people. For the best in the world, a big win doesn't mean you're done. It's a new floor that creates a new standard for yourself. What's good? I'm Rob Cressy. And a week ago, I completed the Chicago Marathon, which was something that was a life bucket list uh event for me. I'm very proud of it. It's something that was a year in the making. It was really big for me, but naturally after running it, so many people said to me, Rob, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And I hadn't even gotten to that place yet, right? Of thinking about what's next there. But here we are a week later. And for me, when you've got momentum, you want to keep it going as much as possible. And while I gave myself a week for recovery and to get my body physically back to ready, now I'm sitting there and my mind's work, and it's like, all right, Rob, what's next? What's that goal? Is it just going back to lifting or whatever it is? So with this, I got some inspiration from Jesse Itzler. And I saw that Jesse, his Masogee for the year, is to run 2,025 miles in 2025. And I believe he has to run nine miles every single day for the rest of the year in order to hit it. And it really inspired me because my Masogee for the year is to touch my toes. Flexibility and stretching has not been a habit or a strength of mine. It's just something that even though I'm athletic, even though I run races and lift and play basketball and golf and all of those things, stretching was never part of my routine. And in years past, I even tried making this a Masogi for myself, but I just didn't commit to it. I didn't have that connection. It was something that was uh easy to not do. It's way easier for me to train for a marathon than be consistent in stretching, knowing that inch by inch by inch, I'm gonna be touching my toes. But when I saw Jesse declare what he needed to do in order to hit his Masogee for the year nine miles a day for the rest of the year, I was like, wow, there's a huge opportunity in front of me right now. That yes, it was nice that I completed the Chicago Marathon and it created a new standard of excellence for myself. But that next level of me, that really hard thing, that really hard thing is attempting to touch my toes. So guess what? I went into Chat GBT and I just sort of brain-dumped all of this stuff, sharing my struggles, the ways that I'm thinking about this, the things that I've done. It just so happens at the same time in my recovery for the Chicago Marathon, I'm still dealing with uh knee pain and cramps in my hamstring. So I am not able to run for the next few weeks. And I'm taking that intentionally, right? Because part of McLaren mode, Rob, that best version of me is maintenance, right? By default, I'm go, go, go, let's make it happen. But sometimes you want to be smart so that you can have a healthy body. So with that in mind, my ability to emphasize stretching in my life, man, not only is that gonna heal me, but it's also something where I'm investing in the long-term game for this. And by co-creating with ChatGBT, we ended up creating a new growth game called Ground Game 30. And it's a 30-day commitment for myself to stretch at least 10 minutes a day, every single day, knowing that I have the goal of touching my toes. And once I saw that, I was like, boom, I love the name of this. I love turning this into a growth game because one of the keys of high performance for me is uh my standard of excellence is so high that I'm gonna commit to my own growth games. I don't need somebody else to have to hold me accountable. If I want the thing, I'm gonna go and do the thing. So I loved that, but then logically, the next step for me is uh I know my commitment around stretching has been lacking in the past. So immediately I did a post on social media being like, by the way, everybody, I'm committing to touching my toes by December 31st. And here I am again publicly declaring this uh in a podcast of this is what I'm going to do, right? And commitment is a big part of my world, right? It's the it's the catalyst, it's the foundation to who I am. So, with all this, here we go. We've got a plan. And with stretching, the thing that is challenging about this, which is what makes this such a big victory, is that progress is oh so slow. It's inches, it's a lot of discomfort. This is something that is at the absolute um bottom of what I would consider a strength of mine, right? It would actually be considered a weakness of mine. It is something that I am not good at. But I what stands in the way becomes the way, as they say in the book, The Obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday, right? So I'm gonna flip the thing that is not good and I'm gonna turn it into an asset for myself that serves me for the rest of my life. Because the true goal of all of this, yes, touching my toes is the end goal. But really, this is about creating a lifestyle and a habit of flexibility and mobility and stretching, because at some point we're all gonna be 75 years old. And boy, do I wish I would have been a lot more flexible and invested in that right now. The thing though is even though this all makes sense and I got a ground game 30 and the consistency and stretching 10 minutes a day, I've been stretching for 10 minutes a day for the last nine months with the Chicago Marathon. And is that going to be the thing that gets me to touching my toes? Yes, it's going to be consistent. The little light bulb went off in my head. And there's another thing that Jesse Itzler said years ago that I picked up on that inspired me. So one of the things that Jesse does is he goes to uh a basketball camp at Duke University uh every single year, put on by Coach K. And I don't know if they have a training program that they give the people or whatever it is. And Jesse said, well, if everybody else is gonna be working out once a day for this training program, I'm gonna be working out twice a day for this thing. That way I'm coming in double everybody else. So even though this is very challenging for me, and I created this commitment for myself of hey, ground game 30 once a day, 10 minutes every single day, the little light bulb went off. And I was like, that's not the thing that is going to get me to where I want to go. I need to put in double the amount of effort because this is what commitment looks like. For something where I feel so far away on this, I gotta do way more. And for me, this is more mental than it actually is the physical. Yes, doubling the amount of time that I stretch, so from 10 minutes to 20 minutes a day, will actually help. But number two, this is the way that I'm creating momentum in my mind around this. And this is something I have never in my life done before. So this is coming fresh off the boat. This is 24 hours into this. Today is day two of uh ground game 30. I already got in a 10-minute stretch to start the day. Uh, so what I'm doing strategically is I'm gonna stack one stretch at the beginning of the day, the same way I do reading, right? Because if something is important enough, you will always find time to make it happen. When is there always time? First thing in the morning. Because previously I'd been stretching at like seven o'clock, right before we're putting our son down to bed. And it's cool and everything, but there's this sort of like lingering thing of like, oh, Rob, do you get in your stretching? Do you get in your stretching? And it's a it's a lot more random, even though I know when it's gonna be, as opposed to let's stack this thing and guarantee that you get it in because it is that important. And then secondarily, my second stretch now will be the one that I've been doing right there. And I want to share this tactically because this has not been easy for me. This has been one of the biggest struggles and challenges in my life. It would be super easy for me to not do my Masogee of touching my toes. Hey, when I started 2025, I sit out there and I was like, this is gonna be my best year ever. What is that one defining thing that is so hard that if I do it, the impact will last with me for the next year? And that answer for me was touching my toes because I see what that future vision of me looks like in my family, in my flexibility, in my health, because I do believe it. And I've been using the Peloton app for it. They've got some great stretching, and all of a sudden, I'm seeing the people, the female and the male instructors who are physically fit, who look good, who have this inspiration and motivation and this lifestyle, who talk about the importance of this thing. And I was like, boom, I get down like those people. And guess what? No one's gonna be sitting here patting my back, being like, way to go, Rob, you're getting in, you're stretching. Oh, that's super fun. You're not posting this stuff on Instagram. This isn't like running a marathon. This is that stuff that you do when nobody else is watching, and it is the least sexy thing in the world. And I'm sharing this because we're sitting here near the end of October. We've got two months left in the year. What do you want that big win to be between now and the end of the year? When you hit me up and you're like, hey, what's up, Rob? I listened and I watched this thing, and man, it inspired me. And here's the thing that I committed to, and here's a picture of me accomplishing it, right? What is that for you? Because it's super easy to talk about all the wins that we stacked this year. It's great, but this is sort of what we do. We keep winning. We are born to win. So when you have a big win in your life, you're not done. That's the new floor, that's the new standard. So my encouragement for you is what is that big thing? Was there something you said early on in the year that you wanted to do that you wanted to accomplish? Are you just letting yourself off easy, being like, you know what? Felt about it earlier. I'm just not feeling it right now. I felt that exact same way, right? Touching my toes was not alive in me like it is right now. But because of Jesse Itzler's inspiration, and and this is just me watching Jesse, this is the beauty of Jesse, because he is a model of living by example. And we all can take that signal and then look at our own lives and say, hey, how am I living the way that Jesse is doing it to create the things that I want inside of my life? Right? Because when we do, great things can happen. And then whatever you define that thing to be, look at your commitment and then look at your effort. What would happen if you doubled your effort on that? Right? 10 minutes of something becomes 20 minutes of something. Do you think you are more likely to accomplish that thing? Strategically for me, I do. That's the thing that I'm going to be living, and that's the thing that I'm going to be doing. So I would love to hear from you. You can hit me up on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter at Rob Cressy. What is that big win you are committing to for between now and the end of 2025? Sending tons of love and good vibes your way. Have yourself an amazing rest of the day.