Iron Limits The Power of Commitment

 summary

Dr Bobby J Grossi shares his journey from registering for his first triathlon to completing Ironman races while managing multiple businesses. He explores the power of commitment, identity, and systems in achieving extraordinary goals, drawing parallels between athletic and entrepreneurial pursuits.

Transcript

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It's 704 in the morning. The water is about fifty-eight degrees. And I'm standing on the beach of Frankfurt, Michigan, a town of about twelve hundred people in a wetsuit, a swim cap and goggles that are pretty much already fogged up. There are maybe 400 athletes around me. I don't know, some stretching, some are staring at the water like it owes them something, and some are just throwing up. I'm not thinking about the swim. I'm not thinking about the 56-mile bike ride that comes after it. I'm not thinking about the 13.1 mile run. I'm thinking about what comes next. What comes next in my business ventures? What comes next as a deal might be falling apart and I needed to make it needed a decision because my partner sent me a text. And I thought that's going to have to wait for about 45 seconds because the cannon is about to go off. Welcome to the Iron Limits, the Iron Dennis podcast talking about Iron Limits. I'm your host, Bobby, Dr. Bobby J. Grassing. Today we're starting starting at the beginning. Not the beginning of the race, the beginning of this idea. This show is about what happens when you decide to do something that most people think is insane. Whether that's a 140.6 mile Iron Man triathlon or starting your business, first business, or even your sixth one. And what those two things have to teach each other. See, I've done both. I've competed a half Iron Man in Frankfurt, Michigan, and a full Iron Man, 140.6 miles in Panama City, Florida. And I did all of it while running six businesses, being married and raising kids. Each business, I had three crumble cookie franchises. I'm a dentist. I have two dental practices. I also have a full dental lab, and then I slowly created a dental medical lab. So, and before anyone asked, no, I didn't miss anything that mattered. That's also part of this story. So, how did this all begin? I want to start with the moment I registered for my first race. Not because it was dramatic. It wasn't. It was just me, a laptop, a credit card, and a very bad decision that at that at just the right time. See, I signed up for the Frankfurt Half Iron Man registration first. I've been running, working out here and there. Someone I respected had mentioned the Travis Sidrier races in the Frankfurt Half. The 70.3 came up and 70.3 miles, 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run. Um, that's what I decided to do. But the sad part is I wasn't even a triathlete. I didn't even own a real road bike. I had not swum laps in years. I've looked up at the registration page for probably 45 minutes, and then I did the one thing that changed everything. I've typed in my credit card number. Something happened in my brain between so the moment you register, you are no longer someone thinking about doing a triathlon. You're a triathlete in training. That identity shift is everything to me. So something happened in my brain between the moment before I hit confirm and the moment after. Before it was a nice idea and an aspiration. After it was a problem I had now to solve. So I had to learn to swim, actually swim. Flip, turns, bilateral breathing, not drowning in open water with 400 other people, actually 1200 people at the framefort. I had to buy a bike, a real one. I had to figure out what training plan even was. And then I had to find seven to twelve hours a week to actually do it inside a life that has already had zero margin. And here's the thing. I could have figured it out. I could have figured it out all the B4 registration. I could have had done research, prepared, gotten ready. I didn't. I committed first and then I got ready. And that sequence matters more than almost anything else. I'll tell you in this series. So how does this tie in? What's the business peril? Commitment as a forcing functional. What how does this tie in? Let me tell you what I see most often in entrepreneurs who never quite quite launch. And I've seen a lot of them because when you run six businesses, you meet a lot of people who want to start one. They're waiting to be ready. They're researching, they're planning, they're talking to advisors, they're refining the business plan, they're waiting for the market to be just right, the funding to be just right, the timing to be just right. And I want to be kind about this because there's nothing wrong with preparation. See, preparation isn't the enemy, but there's a version of preparation that is actually just fear wearing in very respectful disguise. Every business has a registration moment. It's different for everyone, but it's all always real. For some people, it's the first dollar of investment, their own money on the line, no refunds. For some people, it's putting their notice at their job. For some people, it's the first public announcement, telling your network, your family, your community that this is happening. For some people, it's the first hire because now someone else's livelihood depends on what you build. The form is different, the function is identical, though. You are making a commitment that turns an aspiration into a problem you now have to solve. Readiness is not a prerequisite of commitment. Commitment is what creates readiness. Let me just say that again. Readiness is not a prerequisite for commitment. Commitment is what creates readiness. I did not become a swimmer and then registered for triathlon. I registered for a triathlon and then became a swimmer. That is the only sequence that works for people who have full lives, full schedules and no extra margin. And most of you listening, if you're running a business or trying to, you have to have full lives. You don't have 18 months of open runway to figure things out before you start. You have to start in order to figure things out. So there's a science behind commitment. There's a reason that this works psychologically. When you make a public commitment or any commitment that has real consequences, your brain changes how it allocates attention and resources. Psychologists call it the Ziggarnik effect. Unfinished tasks take upon mental real estate in a way that completed a not yet started tasks don't. Once you commit, your brain won't let it go. It starts scanning for solutions, noticing relevant information and connecting the dots even in your sleep. So when I registered for the Frankfurt, I noticed, I started noticing other triathlones. I started noticing articles about open water swimming. I started asking different questions. The information was always there. I just wasn't oriented toward it. Same thing happens when you tell someone, really tell them that you're starting a business, you're starting to start meeting the right people, you start hearing the right conversations. The world didn't change, you did. I can remember when I started saying I was gonna run an Iron Man. My wife called me out the year I didn't do it, and that's what really pushed me that. But the bottom line is when you start saying what you're gonna do, your the universe opens up for you. So when you think about full Iron Man doubling down or doing this, um so at the end of the day, when I started, when I finished the Frankfurt half, and then if you've ever done a race, any race, you know what happens to the finish line. You feel incredible, your legs don't work, you're eating something weird from a foul, foul wrap wrapper, foil wrapper suit, and a part of your brain that is a terrible judgment says, now what's next? For some people, the what's next is a long nap, a cheeseburger. For me, what's next was a full Iron Man, literally six weeks away. 140 uh.6 miles. The swim goes from 1.2 to 2.4. The boy bike goes from 56 miles to 112, and then after all that, you run a full marathon. 20 point 26.2 miles. I registered for the Panama City Beach. So Florida in November sounds like a good idea, right? Until you realize that it's mild in Florida, still means 80 plus degrees on the run course. The Gulf of Mexico at the race start is beautiful and flat, which sounds like a gift until you realize flat water means no distraction, just the math. How far you still have to go. The bike course takes you out and back along the coast, the run is lapsed, which is psychologically its own kind of uh challenge. You pass the finish chute for four times before you're allowed to enter. I want to tell you more about the Panama City in later episodes, but about a mile 18 of the run, about what happened when everything hurt and nothing felt like it was working. But here's where I'll tell you now. I finished 140.6 miles, I crossed that line, and the announcer called my name. I can remember when the announcer called my name, I remember my daughter literally saying, You did it, you're an Iron Man. And that moment forever changed my life. Mike Riley is a famous in the triathlon world. He's been calling names at the finish line for decades. And when he looks at you coming down in the shoot and says those words, you are an Iron Man, it does something that you and I don't have language for yet. I'll try in the last episode of this series, but I'm not sure any words are adequate. Here's the question I asked, uh I get asked more often than people find out about the races and the businesses and the family. They ask, how did you do it all? And my and the honest answer, I the one I want to give this entire series, is it starts with you when you decide who you are. Not your schedule, not your systems, not your productivity tax, your identity. What Iron Man athletes know about identity, identity. There's a concept in sports psychology called identity-based motivation. The identity identity, the idea is simple. Behaviors follow identity. If you think of yourself as someone who exercises your, excuse me, if you think about yourself as someone who exercises, you exercise. If you think of yourself as someone who finishes what you start, you ultimately finish. Tri at least swim. I swim, done. When you remove your decisions from the equation, when you're where the when the behavior is just an expression of who you are, you stop spending energy on motivation. You redirect that energy into execution. And that's huge. See, I see the same thing in businesses that succeed and the ones that stall. The founders have who build something real are not the ones who with the best ideas. They're the plenty of people with great ideas. They're the ones who decide in some identifiable moment that we're built builders. That is who was who they were, not just something they were trying. When you're a builder, you don't wait for motivation to show up. You build because that's what just you just what you do. When the deal falls through, when the team members quits, when the product or something doesn't land, you don't have an external crisis in whether you should be doing this. You figure out what's next because that's what builders do. The goal for training for an Iron Man is not just to finish a race, is to become the kind of person who does. Let me say that again. The goal of training for an Iron Man is not just to finish a race, is to become the kind of person who does. Let that sink in. I want to give you something practical before we close out. Something you can do today, not next quarter, not after you've done the research today. Here's a four-part registration framework. Whether you're starting a business, scaling one, or just trying to follow through on something you've been circling for too long. Here's a framework I use. I call it the registration framework for obvious reasons. Step one, name the race. What is the race? What is your Iron Man? What is it that you're trying to do? What is it that you're trying to become? Right? Name the race. Name the race. What is the specific concrete thing you're committing to? Not grow my business, not get healthier. The actual race, the actual goal. For me in 2024, it was to complete Iron Man Florida November 4th. However, I did this in 2025. So step two, make the commitment public. Tell someone who you hold who will hold you to it. Not someone who will be nice about it, someone who will actually hold you to inconvenient times. For triathlons, this is your training partners, your business for businesses. This is your best client. For your investors or the employee you can't afford to let down. In my situation, it was my wife. She held me totally accountable to the point where she called me out when I wasn't doing my shit. Accept you're not ready. This is okay. This is the problem to solve before you come in. This is the condition under which you come in. You will figure out the swimming, you'll figure out the fundraising, you'll figure out the hire, you'll figure out the tech stack, you'll figure out how to go to market. You do not need to figure this stuff out first. That's what stalls most people. And step four is solve background from the finish line. Once you have the commitment, works work backwards. What needs to be true, excuse me, scald backward from the finish line. Once you have the commitment, work backwards. What needs to be true 12 weeks before the race day, six months before launch. What's the critical path? You can't build that path without a destination. That destination comes first. I'll be honest with you. I didn't have all four steps written out when I registered for Frankfurt. I figured them out doing it wrong first and then right second. Then the one thing happened after the Iron Man that maps perfectly to the business. The lessons cost you something, which is why they stick. So here's what I want you to take from this episode, boil down to four lines. Commitment is not what you make when you're ready, it's what makes you ready. Right? Commitment is not what makes you ready. Excuse me. Commitment is not what you make when you're ready. It's what makes you ready. Your identity shapes your behavior more powerfully than your motivation ever will. The most important step in any race or any business is the one where you decide you're in. And then for publicly accountability is not weakness. It's the one of the highest leverages things you can do for yourself. In episode two, I'm going to talk about when you're getting in the water, literally. The Iron Man swim is the 2.4 mile swim, open water, and hundreds of other athletes, most of whom you'll try to swim directly over you. Their first 400 meters are pure chaos. You'll get elbowed, you'll get goggles knocked off, you might swallow some lake water. And those athletes who survive it, who don't panic, who find the rhythm, who come out of the water with something left, they are the one thing in common. They build systems to manage the chaos before the race. Episode two is called the chaotic starts and calm systems. And if you're ever, and if you've ever had a product launch go sideways, lost a key employee the week before a big deliverable, or you just showed up on Monday feeling like you're already behind, this one's for you. I'm glad you're here. I spent a lot of miles on the road in the pool on the saddle thinking about what I've learned about wondering if it was worth sharing. I decided it was. It has resonated. If there's a race you've been circling, a registration page you've had to open too long, close that tab and open it again. And this time, type in your card number. I'll see you on the start line. Hope this crushes. Hope this helps. We'll talk soon.