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All right, we're back in the saddle for another solo episode of the podcast. Now, when I came up with this concept of being in the saddle for a solo episode, it had a very different meaning than it has to me today. The concept came from us being out here on the ranch and feeling like if I was truly a rancher, I would be on a horse in a saddle, roping cows. The reality is, now my definition of saddle is this bike seat. And today, I want to talk to you a little bit about this moment. Not about a whole concept, not about a whole theory, but just one single moment. Six months ago, I said yes to riding my bike 2,000 miles from Mexico to Canada in an effort to raise a million dollars for people in overlooked communities and provide direct impact to those inside of them. Now, five months ago, I said yes with my actions. So the words came first, the verbal commitment came first, the actions that came second. And I remember the exact moment that I said this idea or this concept to somebody other than myself. I said it out loud. And that moment is a moment that I don't think enough people talk about. It's a dark, sort of eerie, sort of exciting moment where you realize that this is finally real. This commitment I just made out loud is finally real. The quiet voice inside of you that never makes the commitment out loud is safe, it's secure, it's stable. But that quiet voice inside of you, once you actually verbalize something, kind of says, okay, now what are we going to do? Like, now we actually have to do the thing. And that is what this entire episode is about. It's about that feeling. Not about the decision, not even about the bike ride, but it's about that feeling. And I think what most people get wrong is they don't recognize that the hard part about commitment is not making it. The hard part about commitment is not making it. Like, not making the commitment. Living your entire life in this limbo, in this mental torture space of like, am I going to do the thing or am I not gonna do the thing? Once we make a commitment, once we put the flag in the ground, it's actually pretty easy to determine what actions we need to take in order to achieve the thing we set out to or the thing we desire to. But it's the inability to take action or the inability to make commitment that I think is ultimately what most of us torture ourself with constantly. Should I make the call? Should I have the hard conversation? Should I quit the job? Should I start the business? Should I ask the girl out? Should I, should I. Should I. Until we make that actual commitment, we are literally spending every waking minute I have found in my personal life mentally torturing ourselves and trying to decide what will happen. Should I, shouldn't I? When we actually make the decision, when we actually make the commitment, if nothing else, even if it goes horribly wrong, at least we got clarity as to what that commitment or what that decision did for us in our life. And what I believe nobody is really, truly telling you or telling me is what commitment really costs. And what I've recognized from this bike ride and this commitment to the ride is what commitment truly costs for me in my life. The first thing is the no's. By saying yes to something, you're ultimately saying no to a lot of other things in your life. For me, the ride by saying yes to this. I have said no to a lot of things. A lot of experiences, a lot of travel, a lot of late nights, fun evenings with friends, haven't drank alcohol. Through this training protocol, I've said no to sleeping in because I have to get up and get the training in. I've said no to weightlifting sessions because I had to put in time on the bike. When we make a commitment and we say yes to one thing, we are ultimately saying no to a lot of other things in our life. And that cost is real, whether we recognize it or not in the moment. That is a real thing to take into consideration. Now, when I look back on the ride and my commitment on the ride, I publicly announced it in November of 2025, and I'll never forget, somebody called me immediately after that announcement. Now, granted, at this moment in time, I hadn't even ridden my bike. It was still hanging on the wall, the tires were flat, and I hadn't even really done. But this man called me, somebody I would say is a mentor of mine, somebody I look up to, somebody that, you know, I know very well. And he said, hey, can I share with you my perspective now? Being a person that likes to think I'm genuinely curious all the time. I said, of course. Like, what do you have? Like, share your perspective. He said, you know, I've been thinking a lot about the ride. And then he corrected himself and said, no. My wife and I have been thinking and talking a lot about the ride, and we don't think you should do that. This is a bad idea. And you have no idea as to how much you're going to have to sacrifice in order to achieve this. The businesses, the family time, the friend time, the amount of work, the amount of workouts, what it's going to do to your body. You should not do this. This is a terrible idea. Like, you should come up with a different idea. Now, I am the kind of person that may be labeled as a smart ass or a little bit witty. So I said, like, man, I really appreciate that feedback. Can you tell me how you did it when you rode your bike across the country? And of course, he had never done it. Now, that doesn't mean his opinion wasn't valid. That doesn't mean his perspective wasn't something I could still learn from. It was just a sign to say, you haven't done this either. And so do I really want to take criticism from you on this? Now, I did take into account a lot of the underlying message that he delivered, which is essentially what I'm talking about here on this first point. The cost of saying yes to something, that commitment is an a lot of no's elsewhere in your life. And I have made sure intentionally throughout the entire training session for the ride to make sure that those no's aren't no's to my kids, aren't nos to dinner with my family, aren't nos to the weekends. Like literally told my coach when we started working together, I said, you can make the blocks as long as you want during the week. You can stack as many days on top of each other during the week. Do not touch my weekends. And the coach was caught off guard because most people will do their long training blocks, especially people that work on the weekends. Like, that's when they can get in the long rides or the long runs for whatever they're training for. But I told my coach I am willing to get up as early as I have to in order to be home for dinner. I'm willing to train as many times during the week as I have to in order to be home on the weekends with my kids. And I don't want to be sitting there on a Saturday for 6, 7, 8 hours on the bike while my kids are playing with toys, swimming in the pool and asking, where is dad? So I think it's important to recognize that commitment ultimately has a cost to it. And that cost is going to show up in the form of a lot of no's. Now, the other cost that I think we need to talk about is it's your identity. When you make a commitment, especially publicly, that is who you become. That is who you are labeled as. There are so many rooms that I have walked into since I made the commitment for the ride, where I have been Labeled as that guy riding his bike from Mexico to Canada. That's an identity that people have given to you, but you have ultimately given to yourself by making that commitment publicly. When you share with thousands of people all the time what you're doing, how you're going to do it, how is it going? Everybody is watching, everybody is studying. And I think there's a lot of people that are waiting for you to fail so they can call you up and say, I told you so. So it's important to recognize that with commitment comes identity. Now I personally believe that to be a good thing so long as the commitments are good. But you may feel differently, and if you do, that's okay, so long as it is a conscious choice and a conscious recognition as to this commitment is giving me an identity that I do resonate with or I don't resonate with. And if it's one that you don't resonate with, it's an opportunity for you to ask, is this even something to consider committing to or is this just something that I should just let go? The last thing I'll just talk about with this, this whole cost notion is there are low days, like there are some really bad, really dark days on the journey towards achieving whatever you've committed to. I can tell you literally this week I had one of those days. It was Tuesday morning and this week that we're recording this episode is called Simulation Week. So I have 21 hours on the bike leading up to back to back 170 mile days to start next week. That's seven days followed by two days of a lot of time on the bike. And it was Tuesday morning, I hadn't slept the greatest and I just was in a dark spot in my mind. I've been training really early in the morning and most of my training has been done indoors. And so I got here to the office where my trainer is at about 2:30 in the morning. And I started riding around 3 o'. Clock. And the morning session was supposed to be a four hour training block. About 2 hours and 35 minutes into the session, I hit a brick wall. I just could not continue to pedal. I had all of these limiting beliefs, I had all of these doubts, I had all of this noise in my head telling me why I shouldn't do this, how I wasn't going to be able to achieve it, why everybody who told me this was wrong was right and I just couldn't pedal my legs. In that moment. I made a choice to recognize that this day was going to be Dark. This day was going to be low. And I knew I would have some of those when I signed up for this, when I made this commitment. I got off the trainer and I literally laid on the floor. 5:35 in the morning, you know, there's no lights outside. I turned off all the lights in the office and I laid on the floor and listened to some meditative music. And I allowed those negative thoughts. I allowed that dark moment to almost pass me by as if I was sitting on the side of a highway watching cars just race by. It was like negative thought gone, negative thought gone, Negative thought gone. I didn't try to ignore those thoughts. I didn't try to ignore the low day. I tried to just sit in it and witness it and watch it and recognize that this too shall pass. This negative thought, this negative belief, this too shall pass. Now this too may also come up time and time again when you make commitment. But just recognize that those low days or those low points, they will pass. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when. Sometimes the low days stack and it's 20 in a row, 30 in a row, 50 in a row. Sometimes it's years in a row, sometimes it's two hours. The question isn't will the low day come. The question is will you have the comfort to, to sit in the noise and the space of the low day and then get back on path with your commitment after it passes or recognize that action is the number one way to combat the noise or the negativity or the low point. So at 5:35 in the morning, I sat on that floor. Then I sulked and I whined and I whimpered. I mean, I almost cried. I just laid there and said, what am I doing? Why did I do this? I am not a cyclist. I, I don't know if I can do this. I've never done something like this. 150 miles a day, 13 days. Like, everybody was right, I'm going to fail. Everybody was right, I'm not going to get to a million dollars raised. Everybody was right, I'm not going to find the people in these communities to give the money to. And once I let all of that noise drive by me, I'd made a decision to get back on the bike and finish that four hour block. But I realized if I made that commitment only to myself, that that little voice inside would have probably found a way to talk me out of it. So just before 6 o' clock in the morning, I texted my coach and said Rough day. I owe you an hour and a half. Now, it took him a while to respond to me. Granted, it was very early in the morning. But when he did respond, he asked, is it because of the legs are heavy, or is it because of something else? I'm like, hey, it's something else. He's like, cool, just give me an hour. So what he was trying to do is make that bite a little bit smaller, a little bit easier to. To. To digest. But what I had already done was I'd already given him the hour and a half. I made another commitment, a micro commitment inside of that bigger commitment to somebody else to say, hey, hold me accountable. Hey, I'm gonna do this. I know I still owe this to you. Help me out, make sure I actually do this thing. And so when we really think about commitment, I want to just challenge you to think about what is it actually gonna cost you. In the nose, in the identity, in the face of the low days, the bad days. Because all of those things are real. All of those things are going to come. And so if we can recognize that and identify it, we might find the ability to make commitment a little bit easier inside of our life or a little bit quicker inside of our life. And sometimes through the recognition of those patterns or those things, we will find that it's actually a lot harder to make commitment in our life. And I think that is a gift in and of itself, because that may be identifying something that you shouldn't commit to in the first place. Then we have this whole idea of, like, paying the price. Like, what does it actually take? How much work am I actually going to have to do? And the three things that I really come back to is, commitment, for me, kills negotiation. When I was laying on that floor and I texted my coach, I could no longer negotiate, excuse me, with myself, as to whether or not I was going to finish the training block for that day. I could have said I had a bad leg. I could have said the power went out. I could have said I didn't have enough water. Like, I could have figured out any excuse under the sun. And I could have sat there and negotiated with myself for the entire day as to if I was or if I wasn't going to finish the training block. But when we make a commitment, especially to others and especially publicly, that commitment kills all negotiation. You have put that stake in the ground. You have said, I am going to do this thing. And internally, it becomes a lot harder to negotiate with yourself. It becomes a lot harder to talk yourself out of doing the activities or the actions needed in pursuit of the commitment that you have made. The other thing I would say is people are watching you at all times. If you have children, there is no better example of this. My kids, ages 7, almost 5 and 1, learn far more from me through my actions than they do from my words. People online learn far more from who I am based on what I am actually doing than what I say in private. People in the gobundance community learn and watch and study what I'm doing and who I am or with my actions and what I am doing. There are people watching you, whether you want to believe it or not. And I'll tell you this as it relates to the ride, I hope people are watching. Many of them are watching in support. They're cheering me on, they're donating, they're nominating people along the way. They're providing resources, connections. Some of them I know very well, some of them I've just met because they heard about the ride and they've signed up to help us in one way or another. And then there are some people that are watching, waiting for me to fail to say, I told you so, to say, I knew you weren't capable to give me criticism, to give me shame. My belief is it's to deflect all the feelings that they're feeling in their life, but it doesn't really matter. They are waiting to watch me fail. And then there's this third camp. There's this third camp that's watching. Maybe they're supporting or maybe they're hoping I fail. I'm not sure which. But they're ultimately the people that are watching that will see me accomplish this and will say, wow, if he could do that, what can I give myself permission to go do? What can I give myself permission to go commit to? And that third camp, that third camp is a really exciting camp for me because I have watched so many people in my life accomplish so many cool things, Some of them very close to me and some of whom I will never meet. And when they accomplished what they set out to do, when they made a commitment and they actually achieved it, they don't know it. They probably will never know it, but their actions gave me permission to go make commitments that I was putting off. And that I think is really, really important. The other thing I would just say is, don't let the haters weigh you down. I personally like the haters. Like, when we drop this podcast, if people start commenting and going, like, he ain't gonna make the bike ride, 13 days, 150 miles a day. No chance he's not a cyclist. May 27th in Texas. Too hot. He's gonna fail. I take all of those things down and I call them receipts. And I don't keep these receipts from a negative perspective or from a judgmental perspective. I keep those receipts as fuel and a reminder to myself that I can't spend my entire life waiting for permission from others to go out and pursue the things I want. And most often, we view criticism as a way to not grant ourselves the permission we're seeking. We think if we have this business idea and we take it to friends, they'll either validate the idea, which is permission that we should do it, or they won't validate the idea, which is permission that we never have to go do it. I actually like when somebody doesn't validate the idea so long as I know it in my heart of hearts to be the right decision or in my intuition to be the right action. Because their doubt is actually validation for me that nobody is ever coming to give me the permission I'm seeking. Nobody is ever coming to tell me I have the qualifications to go do the things I want to do. That's just not how the world works. The world is designed where friends and family oftentimes are trying to keep you safe. And so they're not telling you not to do something. They're not telling you about all the bad because they want to see you fail or because they don't believe in you. They're telling you not to do something because they want to keep you safe. And that's a family's job, and that's a friend's job. But I will tell you this. When you keep those receipts and you look back on how you felt in the moment when somebody gave you that feedback or somebody gave you their perspective that maybe you asked for, maybe you didn't. It's a little extra fuel to keep you moving through those low days or through those dark points. And what I really think we need to spend a lot of time on is this concept of what I personally don't think people are talking about, honestly. And that moment is when you want out of the commitment. I have made so many commitments in my life. I have set so many goals. I've run two marathons. I've done 29029. I tried to run a hundred mile race without even training. I made so many commitments privately, publicly, to friends and family, to the world. Every single one of the commitments I have made have come with this exact moment. I don't want to do this anymore. How can I quit? And I think that is something we need to talk more about. That is a real thing. And it's okay to have that moment. It's okay to have that fear creep in or that doubt creep in, or that uncertainty, say, hey, stop, quit. That's going to be way easier. But I think for me, in like a real, maybe rational way, what I would say is that quitting is the easy way out. And if you take the easy way out, I do not think it is possible for you to live a big life or an abundant life or a full life. Now, notice I didn't say have a bunch of money. Like, that's not what this is about. Think back on your relationships. Think back on your friendships. We've all had a hard spot in a friendship and if we take the easy way out, which is either to detach from the relationship or avoid the conversation, we take the cop out. And eventually, whether we want to admit it or not, that relationship erodes and it starts to fall back and it starts to fade and the, the connection starts to, to waver a little bit more. I think if you truly want to live your life's mission or your life's purpose, you have to recognize that the I want to quit moment is going to happen. And on the other side of that I want to quit moment, when you keep moving, when you keep moving forward, when you keep taking action, is everything you've ever wanted from life. Almost as choked, but it's everything you've ever wanted from life. The magic we are seeking lies on the other side of the work we're unwilling to do. And the work we're unwilling to do oftentimes shows its face in the I want to quit moment. I don't want to do this anymore moment. I've had so many of those moments on this bike ride journey. I've had so many of those thoughts and every single time the next day, I came back stronger. I came back better. I came back with more purpose, more on mission, with a more powerful why. If I look back on this week, Tuesday, dark day, low day, bad day, and I was given the gift of having a six hour training block on Wednesday, right on the backside of a bad day. What better opportunity to show up with my actions towards the commitment I had made than to had one of my biggest training days on the backside of one of my worst days. And I showed up with a new attitude. I showed up better prepared. I showed up more Motivated and how I did it is very simple. In the evening on Tuesday, I got myself in a better prepared state to tackle Wednesday. I did a better job meal prepping, I did a better job setting out snacks. I pre picked out the clothes I was going to wear on the trainer. I pre packed my backpack. I made sure that the, the act of leaving the house and getting in motion towards that training block was super effortless. I made sure I had enough fuel, I made sure I had enough water, I made sure everything was easy. So I removed some of the excuses from becoming a possibility on Wednesday by doing it on Tuesday night when I was yeah, maybe tired but I was like fresh and I could think. It's really hard sometimes in the morning to get yourself going. It's still dark outside, maybe the alarm went off a little earlier than you would want it to go. And you find all of these ways to start to negotiate with yourself. But if you make a commitment the night before and say here's the clothes I'm going to wear, here's the food I'm going to eat, here's the intervals at which I'm going to eat this food, here's the things I'm going to drink, you've now made again another micro commitment inside of that bigger commitment to go do the thing. The next thing I did was on the way to the ranch, on the way to, to the training session, I listened back on the first YouTube video that we dropped and it's all about commitment, which is ironic but it was like why am I doing the ride? What is this all for? And it's a three minute 40 second video and really it talks about why. Like what is my why for this? It talks about the kids we've already been able to impact, the stories we've already heard, how I want to show up for my family and my friends who's going to be there with me at my side riding at various points throughout this 2,000 mile journey. And ultimately what do I want my kids to see from this? What do I hope that they can take from this? I re instilled in myself the mission, the purpose, the why. And I just kept listening to that over and over and over again until I got to the ranch, until I got to my training block. And what I was doing was I was really trying to drown out the negativity and I was trying to flood my conscious and my subconscious being with all of this recollection as to why am I doing this. Like this is a mission bigger than myself. This is for A cause bigger than myself. This is for people who deserve to be seen and loved and heard and given hope and joy in at least a brief moment with whatever we can do when our paths cross them. And I will tell you, Wednesday was probably my best training block yet. It was six hours on the bike, covered 103 miles, averaged almost 17 miles an hour, which is some of my fastest riding. And I felt good. I felt inspired, I felt powerful. I felt like I could have kept going all day. And I look back on that and it goes back to when we make a commitment. Do we have the ability to be disciplined enough in the good days and the bad days to put ourself in a position to win, especially on the bad days. Tuesday was a terrible day, but I was disciplined enough to put myself in a position to win on Wednesday, to set up my clothes, to pack the food, to pack the fuel, to prepare mentally on the way to the bike so that I could say I am going to win the day, because I have put myself in this position to win. Learning to tell the difference of do I want to quit or is this the wrong decision for me, I think is another concept that we can sit with on those dark days or in those bad moments, like, do I want to quit because this is hard, which is why 97 some percent of the world probably quits the things they want to do. Or do I want to quit because this is no longer the right commitment? I can take you back to 2021, when I wrote a bull for the first time. I, I ruptured my Achilles tendon and I'd already for that year made the commitment to do 75 CrossFit training sessions. If you know anything about the Achilles repair surgery and you know anything about the recovery process, the last thing on your mind for a very long time, possibly forever, is box jumps. Well, one of the staples of CrossFit is quick jumpy type movement. Box jumps, snatches like jump ropes, like all of those things are not something somebody with a ruptured Achilles tendon or a repaired Achilles tendon wants to do or is interested in doing. And so in that moment, I was able to say I made a commitment to do 75 CrossFit sessions. And I recognize that that is no longer the right commitment. Not I want to quit because this is hard. Not I don't really want to do this anymore, but this is not right because my body and the circumstances that I've been presented with after riding a bull lead me to believe that this is not a good decision for Me in my future. When you are sitting in the bad days, when you're sitting in the bad moments, ask yourself, do I want to quit because this is hard or do I want to quit because I know this isn't right? And if you know it in your true heart of hearts that that's not the right decision, then you're not really quitting. You're just making a new commitment. Now, in that same moment, if you're sitting there going, I don't want to do this anymore, I want to quit. This is hard. I believe, then you're truly quitting. You're quitting on the commitment you made. You're quitting on that flag that you planted in the ground, towards that thing you said you wanted to accomplish. And for me in my life, how I live, that is not acceptable. That's the easy way out. And I'm not willing to choose the easy way out. Go back to the hundred mile run. I did a hundred mile run without training. The longest I ran during the training was three miles, and that was two months before the run. And the last time I ran before the run was two months before the run. Mile 40, I quit. Now, I don't think I quit. I think I reprioritized my commitments. But most of the world said, you quit, you failed, you dropped out. Yes, by definition, I got dnf, did not finish. I got that status. Like, I've got that badge of honor I can carry with me for the rest of my life. But I had this conversation at mile 40 with a gentleman who was in the military and was getting ready to be deployed, and he could see I was struggling going up a hill. My Achilles was really bothering me, having ruptured it twice before. I'm very sensitive to it. I do not want to hear that gunshot in my leg ever again. And I was working my way up a hill sideways, and he came up alongside me with his walking poles and he said, hey, man, are you okay? What's going on? I'm like, yeah, man, I'm all right. He's like, what's going on? I'm like, man, I got. My Achilles is really bugging me and I've ruptured it before. And I'm just trying to be very sensitive. He's like, well, why are you out here? What's this all for? And I began telling him about the run and my desire to do something like this without even training for it. He's like, yeah, but what's the bigger why? I'm like, well, the bigger why is I'm preparing to ride my bike 2000 miles from Mexico to Canada. And he looked at me and I'll never forget it. He said, what the fuck are you doing out here? And I was like taking it back at first, and then proceeded to ask questions because that's a way to deflect the vulnerability that I would have had to show in that moment. And he ultimately went on to tell me a story about how a couple of years prior, he was running this exact same race on great pace in the middle of the night, stepped on a rock wrong, snapped his ankle and had to be carried off the trail. He's like, you don't know if that's going to happen or not going to happen. But if you're even feeling something off in your ankle, why would you jeopardize this bigger commitment that you've already made publicly? Essentially, what he was saying was reprioritize, don't quit. Just say, like, this run is no longer relevant or important to me given what I've also committed to. And so I'm going to recommit to the ride and I'm going to drop out of this race and I'm going to go back to the hotel and I'm going to have some dinner. I think if we sit in those dark days and we surround ourselves with people that tell us what we need to hear, not necessarily what we want to hear, we can truly identify if we have a desire to quit or if we just really don't feel called to something anymore and we have a desire to recommit to something else. So where I want this to land with you is exactly where it landed with me after I reflected on it and after I journaled on it. Commitments are not free. Anybody who tries to tell you anything else is either selling you on something else, part of their vision, part of their dream, part of their product, or they're just blatantly lying to you because they've never truly made a commitment. Commitment comes with cost. Commitment costs you time, it costs you no's. It costs you low days, it costs you sleep, costs your identity. Commitment costs you things. Now, on the other side of it, commitment does buy you something else. And it buys you something else that I don't think you can get any other way. It buys you clarity about who you are when you commit to something. And you see that commitment through, you learn more about yourself through those bad days, through those costs, than I think you can learn any other way. It's proof that you can carry something or accomplish Something or do something, or stay disciplined enough on task to actually pursue what you want to pursue. Whether or not you win the race, it doesn't matter. Did you finish the race? And the version of yourself on the other side of that hard work on the other side of those low days, I think is the magic we're all seeking in our life. We want to know who we truly are, what we're truly capable of. Can we do the things we want to do, or are we not made to be that person or are we not capable of becoming that person? When you make a commitment, you buy yourself, I think one of the greatest gifts you can ever buy yourself, and that is clarity around who you are as a person. So what I want to leave you with is just a simple question. What commitments have you been circling? Make the damn commitment now. Send me a message, comment on this video, send me a dm, tell me what you're going to commit to. I am more than willing to hold you accountable and provide you with whatever resources and support you need to achieve whatever you're setting out to achieve. And on the other side of that, if it's because you feel it in your heart of hearts that it isn't the right commitment for you, stop talking about it. Move on to something else. If you know it in your heart and you know it in your gut that it is not the right thing for you to do, quit torturing yourself. There's enough pain already that's going on in this universe, in this life, in this world. Like, just get over it. Don't keep talking about the thing you know you shouldn't do and not actually doing the thing. Go talk about something else that you know you should do that you know you can do that still scares you. And go make that commitment. If you're interested in following along on this journey of the ride, go to backtheride.com you can follow along on the journey. You can sign up to ride with us. Also, you can watch all of the YouTube stuff that's going to drop. So every single day on the ride, we're going to drop two YouTube videos. One is going to show the journey of the ride and the give back. The other is going to show the journey of the community and the tribe and the give back. You're going to see the good, you're going to see the bad, you're going to see the ugly. And I think what you will see through those videos is truly what comes with commitment. You're going to see the cost, but you're also going to see the benefit, you're going to see the bad, but you're also going to see the good. And my hope is that if you are afraid to commit to something, that you just stop torturing yourself. And you say, if the worst thing that happens when I make this commitment is I end up exactly where I am right now in this moment, then why wouldn't I go for it? You are living your worst case scenario by not making the commitment, by not putting yourself in the position to get lucky, by not putting yourself in that position to achieve what you set out to achieve. Quit talking about it, quit torturing yourself and just make the commitment. Every single day. You are going to have to recommit to whatever you want to do in your life, and that is a choice and an option that you will be given. And so long as it is right for you, I would encourage you to keep making that commitment, make those micro commitments and just keep pushing forward. Because on the other side of the work that you've been unwilling to do, that I have been unwilling to do, is the magic we are both seeking. Sa.
Host: Matt King (GoBundance)
Date: May 5, 2026
In this deeply personal solo episode, Matt King unpacks the real costs—emotional, personal, and psychological—of saying "yes" to a big commitment. Using his ongoing journey to bike 2,000 miles from Mexico to Canada (in an effort to raise $1 million for underserved communities) as a case study, Matt explores the inner experience of commitment: the moment it becomes real, the sacrifices it requires, the impact on identity, dealing with critics and doubt, and the power of seeing things through.
The episode is a candid look inside the mind of someone doing something daunting—not just the surface-level stories of success, but the gritty truths and low days that come with any major undertaking.
[00:03] Matt sets the focus: not on the concept of commitment, but "just one single moment"—the instant a private idea is spoken aloud and becomes real.
The Dark, Eerie, Exciting Space
[05:09] Commitment isn’t just about doing one thing—it’s about not doing countless others.
Intentional Sacrifice
[22:12] Even with preparation, there are dark, low, or demoralizing days.
The Role of Accountability and Support
[40:00] “People are watching you at all times. If you have children, there is no better example… my kids... learn far more from me through my actions than they do from my words.” [40:22]
On Haters and Critics
| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:03 | The moment commitment becomes real | | 05:09 | Sacrifices and the cost of saying yes | | 12:55 | Protecting family time and intentional no's | | 17:40 | How commitment shapes identity | | 22:12 | Facing and coping with low days | | 32:00 | Making micro-commitments and seeking accountability | | 38:15 | Commitment kills self-negotiation | | 40:00 | Being watched: role modeling, critics, and silent supporters | | 49:50 | The inevitability of wanting to quit | | 1:02:40 | Reprioritizing versus quitting: realigning commitments | | 1:13:10 | Commitment’s reward: personal clarity | | 1:17:05 | Closing challenge: Make the commitment or move on |
Matt King’s solo episode is a raw, authentic reflection on what truly happens—internally and externally—when you say yes to something big. The real cost of commitment isn’t just time or effort; it’s the emotional toll, the identity transformation, the steady parade of things you must decline, and dealing with both supporters and doubters.
Yet, commitment brings self-knowledge and clarity unavailable any other way. Matt’s lesson: Face the costs, stop torturing yourself with indecision, and either commit or consciously move on. Because, as he repeats, “on the other side of the work that you’ve been unwilling to do…is the magic we are both seeking.”
To follow Matt’s journey or join the ride, visit backtheride.com.