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Why Most People Break Before They Win
(the secret to winning a ten year game):
Eric Hinman
March 08, 2025
read on: themovementmemo.com
read time: 5 minutes
Welcome to The Movement Memo, a bi-weekly newsletter where I share actionable tips to help you live your best day ever, every day.
Today's Programming
Movement: 4 rounds for time
Quote: Einstein on work
Lesson Learned: The hidden competitive advantage of joy
Youtube: A full day of investing, training, and Hyrox prep
Optimization: Health care for health-conscious individuals
Today's Movement
Complete 4 Rounds for Time:
10 Deadlifts (225/135 lbs)
15 Box Jumps (24/20 inches)
20 Wall Balls (20/14 lbs)
10 Toes-to-Bar
50 Double-Unders (100 Single-Unders if not proficient)
Robbie’s new restaurant in Salida, CO.
Today's Quote
“Play is the highest form of research.”
Einstein understood what most people get wrong—breakthroughs don’t come from relentless grinding.
They come from curiosity, experimentation, and joy. The greatest ideas in history weren’t the result of suffering—they were the result of playful exploration.
If your work doesn’t energize you, you’re not setting yourself up to win—you’re setting yourself up to quit.
Today's Lesson Learned
Work Is Not Supposed to Feel Like a Cage—It’s Supposed to Be Fun
Success is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon.
It’s a ten-year game. But most people never make it that far. They flame out early—not because they weren’t talented, not because they weren’t disciplined, but because they built a system they couldn’t sustain.
They made the same mistake I did.
For years, I thought the only way to win was to push harder than everyone else.
More hours. More effort. More discipline.
And for a while, it worked.
I built businesses. I crushed endurance races. I outworked, outlasted, outperformed.
But at some point, I looked around at the people who had been playing this game longer than me.
Some were still at the top. Others had disappeared completely.
And I noticed something strange:
The ones who were winning over decades—the ones who never seemed to fade—weren’t the ones who worked the hardest.
They were the ones who worked in a way that they could sustain forever.
Their work didn’t feel like a cage. It felt like something they wanted to come back to every day. They had unlocked something I hadn’t.
They weren’t pushing harder – they were playing longer.
You Can’t Win If You Can’t Stay in the Game
The truth is, success isn’t about crushing today.
It’s about surviving long enough to win in ten years. But most people don’t build their work lives that way. They treat every day like a race—full intensity, no breaks, no second gear.
They mistake constant effort for long-term advantage.
But the best in the world approach work the way elite athletes approach training.
They understand that not all work is equal. They know that sprinting all the time leads to collapse. They build their work lives the way an elite athlete builds a training cycle.
The Science of Staying in the Game: Periodization
If you’ve ever trained for an Ironman, a marathon, or any endurance sport, you know that no one goes at full effort all the time.
Every great training program is periodized—broken into specific cycles of stress and recovery.
Base Building → Slow, steady effort to build capacity.
Strength & Speed → High-intensity training to push new limits.
Taper & Recovery → Reduce intensity to allow adaptation and long-term growth.
If you skip any of these phases, you break down.
If you never push, you never grow.
If you never recover, you burn out.
This applies to business, creativity, and life just as much as it applies to training.
Creativity follows cycles → Deep work, then mental breaks.
Business follows cycles → Periods of extreme focus, followed by strategic rest.
Athletics follows cycles → Hard training, then tapering.
The people who win don’t push forever. They know when to go hard and when to step back. That’s why the ones who never slow down eventually collapse.
And the ones who design their work cycles stick around long enough to win.
The Moment I Learned This in a 200-Degree Sauna
I didn’t figure this out in a boardroom. I didn’t learn it from reading a book.
I learned it in a 200-degree sauna, on the verge of passing out.
It was after an especially brutal training session at Muscle Mountain, the backyard training facility that started as my personal gym and became an underground community for people who love pushing their limits.
We were already wrecked—lungs gasping, sweat dripping, muscles shaking—when someone threw out the idea:
“Sauna?”
It wasn’t a question. It was a challenge.
We crammed inside. 180 degrees. Then 190. Then 200.
Minutes stretched. Heat pressed down like a vice. Nobody wanted to be the first to break.
Until someone did.
A slow lean forward. A stumble. Someone caught him before he hit the floor.
The sauna had won.
Sounds miserable, right? But here’s the thing: We laughed about it. We turned it into a story. And the next time, we were back for more.
That’s when I realized: People don’t burn out because the work is too hard. They burn out because the work isn’t fun. The secret isn’t to avoid the struggle.
It’s to make the struggle so enjoyable that you want to keep coming back.
The Hidden Competitive Advantage of Joy
Most people think play is the opposite of work.
They believe work should be serious, painful, and grueling. They’re wrong. The best in the world—athletes, entrepreneurs, artists—work just as hard as everyone else.
But they sustain it because they enjoy the process.
They work in a way that feels good to them—not just in the moment, but over decades.
That’s why they never burn out.
That’s why they never quit.
That’s why they keep winning—long after everyone else has dropped off.
And that’s what most people will never understand:
It’s not just about persistence –it’s about building a life you don’t want to escape from.
Joy Is the Only Sustainable Strategy
Most people are optimizing for the wrong thing.
They think if they just push a little harder, they’ll get there.
They think if they just suffer long enough, it will all pay off.
They think joy is a reward that comes later, after the work is done.
They’re wrong.
Joy is not the result of great work – joy is the fuel that makes great work possible.
And the people who understand that stick around long enough to win.
Today’s Youtube:
Today's Optimization:
For those of us who prioritize health and staying active, I’m excited to share CrowdHealth.
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• Simple and affordable: The application process is straightforward, and the average member pays around $150 per month.
If you’re health-conscious and looking for a healthcare solution that fits, CrowdHealth could be what you’ve been waiting for.
Click the link to learn more and apply to join the crowd!
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Publisher: Eric Hinman
Editor-in-chief: Bobby Ryan