The Undeniable Leader with Rob Cressy

From US Open Champion to AI Mastery: The Connection Nobody Sees

• Rob Cressy

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0:00 | 13:07

Wyndham Clark and his historic US Open win provide a blueprint for high-performance thinking in the AI era. In this episode of The Undeniable Leader, Rob Cressy breaks down three AI mindset lessons pulled from his 2026 US Open win and shows you how they apply to anyone learning to leverage AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude. 

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Hey, it's Rob. Before we dive in, I want to give you some of that good good. I'm giving away my AI playbook called the Unlimited Method completely free. It's the human first system I use with every single client to help them think, create, and lead with AI at the highest level. Go to RobCressy.com backslash AI playbook to grab it right now. Now let's get to the show. Wyndham Clark just had a historic US Open winning his second open in the process, setting a record for the lowest 36 hole score in US Open history at Shinnokok. And while it was inspiring to see, certainly over Father's Day, there are three lessons that I pulled from this US Open that relate to AI, your mindset, and how you can leverage AI better, all from Wyndham Clark and one from Scotty Scheffler. Number one, and this came from Wyndham Clark as they were talking about his family and his mom had breast cancer, and unfortunately, she passed away. She said, play big. So much so that he turned this into a foundation or a charity, and it's a big part of his brand. But immediately when I hear those two words, play big, I was like, boom, shakalaka. That is the playbook for success in AI. Because remember, it is just as easy for AI to write you an email as it is build you a rocket ship to the moon. So why in the world are we playing so small? And this is something where I'm always creating my own self-auditing techniques. One of my mantras is impress yourself. Another one can be play big. And my encouragement for you is to ask yourself this what is the last big thing that you created with AI? Not just small, not just like regular, what you normally do, like winning your second US Open Championship and going down in history type big. Because one of the things that I certainly feel in my experience of using AI over the last three and a half years is I consistently have to shatter my belief ceiling of what is possible, especially when you're already somebody who thinks big. You're like, boom, Rob, I'm all in. Let's go. Let's think big. Let's play with AI big. But what does that actually mean? And how are you designing that into your architecture, into your thinking, into your vision? As we speak right now, one of the books I'm reading again is 10x is easier than 2x. And it talks about 10x thinking, where if you want a 2x your business, just do more of the same. If you want a 10x your business, you have to do almost none of what you're doing right now and only focus on that one thing. And if you only focused on playing big in the AI era, man, you will see so much growth and success. Because so many people, when I'm in everyday conversation about any number of things with entrepreneurs, should have been personal growth to AI, everybody immediately just goes to the use cases and the tactics. Oh Rob, can AI do this? Can AI do that? And I'm like, yo, I'd rather teach you how to fish than give you a fish because everything is on the table. And when you understand that everything is on the table with AI, then playing big is a big part of this because most people are not going to do it. So let's move to number two. And I love this. And Wyndham Clark in his uh speech as he has the trophy, and he's sitting there after 18, and they're interviewing him, said, It's amazing what a year can do. So Wyndham Clark had previously won a US Open, and it sounded like uh he ran into some speed bumps over the last year or two, but recommitted to himself, played big, and came back saying it's amazing what a year can do. And why is this so important? Because no matter where you are right now in the world of AI, you're at zero, you're dabbling, or you're straight crushing, printing stuff with clawed code all day, every day. It's easy to not realize the progress that we are making on a day-to-day basis. But I can tell you this one year from now, your life can be completely different because in the world of AI, days and weeks feel like years. I remember at the start of the year, and this is only like less than six months ago, I was exclusively using Chat GBT and I had for three years in a row. Now it feels gross to use Chat GBT, and I'm only using Claude for everything. And yes, I know that is a tool, but you are one conversation, one relationship, one AI build away from everything being completely different in your business and from so many of the people that I work with, my clients as well as myself. We're not romantic about AI. We do not have technical backgrounds, but what we do have is this big vision for the future of what is possible when we leverage AI. And I can tell you, over the last three years, nothing that I do looks the same year after year because of the AI era. And I share this as inspiration and encouragement for you. Because one year to create a completely different life in the best way possible. It doesn't mean we're getting rid of everything. We got friends and family and business and everything. I got it, but it's a perspective because those who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world do. And this is one of those little nuggets that I picked up when I heard this. Like, wow, it's amazing what a year can do. In AI, it is amazing. You can build a rocket ship in a year, you can build an autonomous business that has AI agents and workers and everything in between, or you can build a life for yourself where you're only working four hours a day. It can be anything that is the beauty of playing big in designing in the AI era. And the third lesson from the US Open that I want to take out was actually about Scotty Scheffler. Scotty Scheffler was coming into the US Open. He'd won the other three majors. The US Open was the last one he needed to complete the Career Grand Slam, something that Rory McElroy did previously when he won the Masters last year. And they were asking Scotty about this, about the career grand slam at the US Open. And he said, it's appropriate to understand what's at stake, right? A throwaway line for 99% of people in the world. It's appropriate to understand what's at stake. And what did I hear from this? Man, imagine if everybody just put that line into Claud or Chat GBT and said, How does this apply to me and my business in using AI? Because if you jump on LinkedIn right now, 50% of the people are there with pickaxes, being like, AI is the worst. I can tell that you're writing with that. Look at those M-dashes, look at all the bad things that you're doing there. And the other 50% of the people are sitting there being like, this is changing my business. I am preaching like Noah and Noah's Ark. Come over this way, we're gonna make everything better. And then there's these two conflicts right there. And one of the things that I really try and bring to the table with all this because number one, I have no AI background, no tech background, no coding background, so I'm not the AI developer speaking right here. But instead, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm someone whose goal every day is to make myself better today than I was yesterday. Been grinding on this bad boy for 16 years in a row. So I am unromantic about it. But how do I turn a dollar into a dollar fifty? So it is appropriate to understand what is at stake. And this does not mean you have to do or not do whatever the answer to the question is. But what is more important is our ability to ask the question to give ourselves the awareness and the appropriate context of like, listen, I know we're in the AI era, the same way Scotty Scheffler knew. Listen, I'm at the US Open, I'm in the final pairing. If I win, I complete the career grand slam and go into already more rarefied air than he already is right there. Because one of the things I have on my whiteboard sitting right there, it says a willingness to ask questions, better questions. And that is the complete key to success in AI. And no matter where you are right now, one of the things that would serve all of us is to it's appropriate to understand what is at stake. And what is at stake right now is legitimately the biggest opportunity in the history of the world ever to make your dreams and goals happen now, right? That's what the AI era has brought to us. You can chop it up however you want, you can use it for cooking, for parenting, for business, anything else. But the key word here is opportunity. And you don't have to do anything with it, but those of us who do, we're gonna be placing those bets. And what I always like to say is place your bets and let the chips fall where they may. So my encouragement for you is to ask yourself do you truly understand what is at stake right now with what is going on at AI? Because for me, I'm all in on my dreams and goals and living my best life ever, every single day, moment to moment. And when I saw AI, I was like, wow, I feel like I'm using the internet for the first time. I am all in. I know where this is going. So the stakes for me have never been higher in my entire life. I've also never been happier, more excited in building new things that I've never done before. So, um, as a little bonus thing here, the number one skill you can learn in the AI era, and there's a lot of number one skills, it is signal recognition. Your ability to use what you hear or what you see as the clay that then you put into AI, or maybe you create something with here. Because I can guarantee you this there's not a single other person in the world who watched the US Open on Father's Day, saw Wyndham Clark win, and then wrote down three different notes about how they relate to the AI era. Well, why? It's because I have signal recognition. I am always looking for words, phrases, sentence to take them, co-create on top of it, and see what can happen. So to wrap up on this and recap, the number one mindsets that we learned from the US Open and Wyndham Clark. Number one, play big. It is your ticket to creating anything you want in the AI era. Number two, it is amazing what a year can do. And I promise you, with a year in AI, you're a completely different human. And number three, it's appropriate to understand what's at stake. You don't have to be about this life, or you could be, but just be aware that you can ask yourselves the questions to help you create the answers that have put you in a position to get to where you want to go. And I would love to hear from you. Did you watch the US Open? And if so, do you have any takeaways that relate to the AI era? If so, shoot me a DM at Rob Cressy on Instagram or LinkedIn. Sending tons of love and good vibes, away. Here's what happened. Here's the rest of the day.