In The Formula of Success: Why Time is Your Greatest Ally

Even the Rolling Stones knew it when singing “Time is on my side.”
​
If you say that time is on your side, you mean that you don’t have to rush whatever it is you want or need to do. Life is not binary. We can have it all, just not all at once. So yes, time is on our side.

Equally, the pursuit of success often stretches across a longer period, which means you don’t need to sprint. It invites patience and grants the luxury of time before decisions or actions must be taken. At the same time, it demands grit and strategic planning to pursue your success across multiple life phases.

1. Time: The Infinite Game Perspective

Success isn’t a one-off game you win and walk away from. It’s not a trophy. It’s a process.

Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game teaches us that real success isn’t bound by quarters or finish lines. It is continuous, adaptable, and driven by purpose. When you treat time as infinite, your definition of success shifts from “Did I win today?” to “Am I building something that matters over time?”

In this mindset, you're less shaken by short-term losses and more focused on consistency, direction, and legacy. You're not playing for applause. You're playing to grow.
 
2. Strategic Time: Building Long-Term Vision with Short-Term SMART Action

Time doesn’t just move forward. It moves in phases.

When you set a long-term goal (for example, completing an Ironman or launching a global business unit), it can feel overwhelming. That’s where the Decision Goal Tree comes in. You break big ambition into smaller SMART goals: specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound. Each one becomes a stepstone, not a stumbling block.

You might want to become a VP in five years. But that might require completing an MBA, gaining international experience, getting involved in a high-visibility project for the CEO, and consistently hitting your targets. Then you can start planning in the short term how to achieve those sub-goals. For example, get funding approval and sign up for the MBA class before April so you can attend in the fall.

3. Time and Mindset: Preparation Through Multi-Phase Success

Churchill nailed it: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” When you see time in stages, failure in one phase becomes learning for the next. This breaks the win-or-lose mindset and builds what I call the preparation mindset.

Instead of asking, “What if I fail?” start asking, “What am I learning right now that builds towards the future phases?” This fuels a continuous growth mindset, which keeps you engaged and internally driven, rather than dependent on external achievements.

4. Time and the Holistic Life Cycle of Goals

Time doesn’t just phase goals. It phases you. As a kid, success might mean exploration. As a student, it means mastery. As a parent, presence. As a professional, impact. As a senior, wisdom.

Trying to chase every goal at once is a recipe for burnout. Understanding life’s rhythm helps you prioritize with clarity instead of guilt. You’re not quitting a goal. You’re rescheduling it for a better season.

Once you start recognizing which goals matter in which phase, you’ll develop a more holistic perspective and become even more successful than if you had tried to force it all into a single all-or-nothing sprint.

5. You're Not Alone: Time, Legacy, and Shared Journeys

Across history, thinkers, leaders, and builders have echoed the value of time. A few worth quoting:

• Steve Jobs: “If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.” This underlines success as a journey. Most people only see the final phase, not the years of effort that led there.
  
• Naval Ravikant: “Play long-term games with long-term people.” Building a network over time increases your chances of success. You may not know top players at age 20, but by investing in relationships over time, you’ll be able to call upon them when it matters. Don’t tell me who you are. Tell me who you know. Surround yourself with people who play infinite games, not transactional ones.
  
• John Wooden: “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.” This reinforces the insight that preparation in one period is essential to succeed in the next. Time is your investment account. Start compounding early.

Conclusion: The Real Power of Time in TFOS

Time can be your best friend if you approach it with the right mindset. It allows you to test and play. It invites you to treat life as a multi-stage game. It takes the pressure off all-or-nothing bets and needing to be right all the time. Most importantly, it lets you shift your definition of success depending on the stage of life you are in, allowing for a richer, more fulfilling experience.
 
Don’t forget. It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey!

BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:

• Executive takeaway: Stop asking “Did I succeed?” and start asking “Am I still in the game and improving?”
• Result: Time becomes a lever, not a limit. Each week compounds toward the big play.
• Coach insight: In triathlon, if you bomb the swim but nail your bike strategy, did you fail? Or did you gather data for your next race? Time lets success unfold.
• Mindset shift: You’re not racing alone. You’re walking a shared, winding, meaningful path with others who value growth over glory. Build a network including captains of industry, mentors and coaches.

Share this blog/newsletter with your friends, family, and colleagues who are also pursuing a sportier and healthier lifestyle!

How to Make Triathlon Investment Decisions Like a Business: ROI, NPV, IRR, PB and BCR

Triathlon isn’t just a sport, it’s a portfolio of investments.

Every week, you're deciding where to allocate your limited time, energy, and money. Do you double down on swim technique? What about that new race wheelset? Invest in coaching? Extend your sleep window? The stakes may not be financial on paper, but they’re personal and real. Note that the returns of our decisions could be future higher benefits or lower cost.

In the business world, we try to reduce the guess work. We evaluate every move based on metrics like ROI (Return on Investment), NPV (Net Present Value), IRR (Internal Rate of Return), and Payback Period (PB), BCR (Benefit-to-Cost Ratio). These metrics help us separate emotion from impact, hype from value. So why not apply the same strategic discipline to your triathlon life in the right way, for the right decision?
​
Let’s dive into how each financial decision-making tool can help you train, race, and recover smarter.

1. ROI – Return on Investment

ROI is simple, fast, and popular. It asks: What do I get back compared to what I put in?
In business, this might be extra output from a new machine in manufacturing. In triathlon, it is a bit trickier, because there is no real financial return – unless if you are a pro. However, you could determine personal value to a minute gained. Let’s assume for this purpose we set it at 20 euro/minute.

Formula: ROI = (Total Return on Investment – Initial Investment Cost) / Initial Investment Cost

When to Use It:
ROI is perfect when comparing two competing options in the same period. This avoids the impact of the time difference.

Example:
You consider buying new shoes and plan to wear them in five 70.3 races.

• Pair A are 250 euro super shoes You expect every half marathon to be 10 minutes faster. Hence your benefit will be 5 races x 10 minutes x 20 euro = 1000 euro. Your ROI then is (1000-250)/250 = 300%
• Pair B are 125 euro running shoes. You expect with training to be 3 minutes faster. Hence your benefit is 5 races x 3 minutes x 20 euro = 300 euro. Your ROI is (300-125)/125 = 140%
• Choose Option A in this case.

Watch Out:
ROI can bias you toward fast wins and shiny objects. It rarely accounts for when the return hits or how long it lasts.

2. NPV – Net Present Value

NPV goes deeper. It considers future value, discounted to today's terms at expected average inflation rate. It’s not just about whether something pays off, but how much it’s worth over time once you factor in consistency, risk, and sustainability.

Formula: NPV = Sum of Discounted Net Cash Flows (– Initial Investment Cost)

When to Use It:
Use NPV when the return of your investment is spread in multiple recurring phases over time. The delayed benefits compound over time and need to be taken into account.

Example:
We compare the NPV of our shoes.

• NPV A = ∑(10minutes x 5 races x 20 euro)/ (1.03) – 250 = 665.94 euro.
• NPV B= ∑(3minutes x 5 races x 20 euro)/ (1.03) – 125 = 149.82 euro

Watch Out:
NPV requires some assumptions about what future gains will be worth. Don’t overestimate and check in quarterly to assess actual results.

3. IRR – Internal Rate of Return

IRR tells you how efficient an investment is over time. A higher IRR means a faster or more effective payoff per unit invested. It represents the discount rate which turns the NPV to zero.

Formula: IRR = Discount factor that turns NPV to zero – software support

When to use it:
Use IRR to rank options that offer long-term benefits with different timelines. Camps, coaching, new disciplines (like trail running or cold plunges), or cross-training all have different IRRs based on how often and effectively they get used.

Example:
The IRR on the shoe case would be

• IRR A = 71%
• IRR B = 39%

Watch Out:
IRR does not take into account the investment value. 2 projects could have the same IRR, but one could be a 500 euro investment and the other a 5000 euro cash out. Also, IRR can be misleading if your usage assumptions are wrong. The best investment won’t yield anything if it gathers dust in your garage. 

4. PB – Payback Period

Payback Period focuses on how fast something pays for itself. It’s less about total return and more about recovery speed.

Formula: PB = Time needed for Actual Returns to meet Actual investment Cost

When to Use It:
Use PB when the timing matters: solving a problem before race day, recovering from injury quickly, or gaining a short-term edge in a race block.

Example: In the shoe case, the PB would be
PB A = 1.25 years / races
PB B = 2.08 years / races

Watch Out:
A short payback doesn’t mean it’s the best investment, just the fastest. Pair PB with IRR or ROI to see the bigger picture.

5. BCR – Benefit-Cost Ratio

BCR, or Benefit-Cost Ratio, is the underdog of decision metrics,  not as flashy as ROI, but incredibly powerful when the payoff isn’t purely about performance. It measures the total value of benefits (tangible or intangible) compared to the cost. Unlike the first 4 KPI’s, which focus on net returns, BCR helps you answer the broader question: Is this worth it? Especially when your “gains” are emotional, social, or mental, not just physical. It is more comparable to the RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion)

Formula: BCR = Discounted Present Value of Benefits / Discounted Present Value of Costs

When to Use It:
Use BCR when the returns are soft but valuable: Emotional well-being, mental clarity, lifestyle satisfaction. Meditation, breathwork, team training, or even a celebratory post-race trip might not make you faster, but they make the process richer, which fuels long-term consistency.

Example:
​There is a lot to do about shaving before a race. Although the results could be only a few minutes, it could have a great impact on you psychological readiness, confidence and stress reduction. Imagine the 30 minutes spent (invested) shaving, for only 5 minute correlated time gain overall, and a boost in confidence. Versus feeling less confident and maybe losing time because of that.

Watch Out: 
​BCR is subjective, and it’s easy to convince yourself that something “feels worth it” when it’s just indulgent. Be honest with yourself: is this adding value over time, or just distracting you from what matters most? It’s about investing in depth, not just dopamine.

Strategic Implementation for Athletes Who Think Like Executives

1. Think in Portfolios, Not Purchases
   Spread your “investments” across short, medium, and long-term returns. Don’t sink it all into gear. A balanced strategy includes recovery, nutrition, technique, and mindset. Focus on foundational investment over gimmicky equipment.
2. Review Quarterly
   Just like financial forecasting, check your performance ROI every 3 months. What’s delivering? What’s noise? Where are you wasting energy or money?
3. Run Experiments
   Treat your training like A/B testing. Try a new fueling protocol for a block, or change your sleep routine. Measure the difference.
4. Track Non-Financial ROI
   Confidence. Mood. Energy after sessions. These are soft returns — but they fuel long-term consistency, which is the most valuable currency in endurance sport.
5. Kill Your Darlings
   Some things you love (like long Zone 2 rides or fancy gadgets) might be delivering the lowest return. Be honest. Cut the dead weight and reinvest where it counts.

Conclusion
​
It is important to determine the right model and the right value for time. As a young athlete with a long career ahead of you the NPV would be recommended, looking for more foundational investements like Tridot Pool School. Older amateurs might prefer BCR, looking at a more expensive racing destination to add a vacation. Pro's might prefer to know the immediate impact better represented by ROI, when discussing altitude camps, wind tunnel aero optimization, nutrition, hypnotherapeutic psycholigists, and more.

Additionally the value of time can hugely differ per person. If you are an age grouper looking to finish, an extra minute might be not valuable at all, but if you are close to making a KONA slot that extra 10 minutes might be worth 1000 euro. If you are pro looking at an overall win, the pay-off might be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Don’t forget. It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey!

BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:

• Identify your top three most expensive next investments and evaluate them as honestly as possible. with the ROI, NPV, IRR, PB and BCR methods.
• Try to determine the value of one minute racing time BEFORE you use the methods in order to tweak the formulas towards your favorite subjective solution. Ask yourself how much would you pay to be 30 - 60 – 90 minutes faster? Calculate your average minute price.
• If you are discussing subjective values. Talk to your partner or other athletes and see if you can come up with good value for those. For instance, the value of one day longer on site in the right time zone?
• Finally, input all the numbers you have into ChatGPT and ask to calculate the KPI's mentioned in the blog for you. Let ChatGPT ask you for more info, if it is missing to calculate it correctly. (Example)

Share this blog/newsletter with your friends, family, and colleagues who are also pursuing a sportier and healthier lifestyle!

Goals: The Double-Edged Sword in the Formula of Success

“You’ll never hit a target you can’t see. But you’ll never grow if the target is always within reach.”

​In the Formula of Success — (Preparation × Vision × Courage) + Luck – Goals, goals are both a compass and a scoreboard. They guide your direction and measure your outcomes. But here's the catch: not all goals are created equal.

Some goals sharpen your focus like a laser. Others stretch your imagination and light a fire in your gut. But if set poorly, goals can backfire, creating stress, false expectations, or a warped view of success. The stress tied to your goals must be optimal,  enough to drive performance, not derail it.

Let’s break down how to use goals the right way, based on where you are in your success journey.

SMART Goals vs. Dreams: Focusing vs. Inspiring

Dreams are why you begin.
They’re aspirational, often vague, and even slightly delusional by design. They stretch you. Think JFK's vision of putting a man on the moon or a Steve Jobs' vision to reinvent the computing industry. These fuel your COURAGE to ignite. They energize teams, create legacy, and fuel resilience when luck runs dry.

SMART goals are how you win.
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound actions are designed to focus attention and energy. They’re performance checkboxes. Practical. Tactical. Grounded. Ideal when you're in the PREPARATION mode or executing your strategy. They keep you honest and on track.

Setting the right kind of goal depends on where you are in your success journey. The key is knowing when to dream and when to lock it down. Stay in dreamland too long, and your goals can become unreachable fantasies. That’s where your formula fails: (PxVxC)+L–G collapses when “G” becomes too heavy. You are more likely not going to succeed .

Therefore, it is important be realistic about your goal and keep your dream as a stretch ambition, to keep the fire burning and the compass firm.

“The secret to happiness (Success) is low expectations." (Barry Schwartz)

The Goal Decision Tree: Know Your Phase

Success isn’t binary, win or lose. It’s a process of progress. The trick? Break down big goals into sub-goals. Make each step small enough to win  and big enough to matter.

The benefit of this approach is that each goals is smaller and more achievable, it allows you to grow your preparation, vision and courage and not have to take a leap-of-faith.

Enter the Goal Decision Tree:

1. Start with a realistic end goal.
2. Identify the critical sub-goals required to get there.
3. Drill deeper breaking down the sub-goals in more actionable and short term sub-goals until the next action feels challenging, but achievable in the near future and you can define how to get there.

This layered approach lets you build Preparation, Vision, and Courage without taking massive leaps. Along the way, you’ll discover that certain sub-goals unlock multiple outcomes. Those are your high-impact moves. Start there.

With every small win, you fuel motivation and momentum. That’s the magic of compounding clarity.

Don’t forget: It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey!
​
BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:

1. Triathletes: Set SMART goals for each sport incremental over time (e.g., improve swim FTP by 5% over 6 weeks), but keep high, realistic ambitions for season goals (e.g., podium finish or finish the Ironman).
2. Executives: Infuse your team with bold visions of the future that inspire purpose beyond KPIs, but use SMART goals to guide daily actions, guide weekly execution and quarterly accountability.
3. Reflection tip: Once a quarter, ask yourself: “Is my goal still exciting and realistic?” If not, tweak the goals to keep the motivation high. Better to redefine success to keep moving, even slowly, than to grind to a halt. You may be able to accelerate again in the next phase.

​Share this blog/newsletter with your friends, family, and colleagues who are also pursuing a sportier and healthier lifestyle!

KAIZEN and the Triathlete's Edge: Why Small Steps Forge Big Wins

In boardrooms and training zones alike, the myth of the “big leap” still seduces many. That one race. That breakthrough product. That magical transformation. But anyone who's ever stood on a start line, or built something lasting, knows: success isn't made in giant leaps. It's crafted in the grind of daily improvement.
​
That’s where KAIZEN comes in.

What is KAIZEN?

KAIZEN is a Japanese philosophy meaning "continuous improvement." Not dramatic. Not flashy. Just deliberate, intentional, and compounding progress, day after day.

In the corporate world, it’s behind Toyota’s world-class manufacturing. In the endurance world, it’s behind every personal best that didn’t happen overnight.

KAIZEN is what gets you from: “I can’t swim 100m without gasping” to “I just negative-split a 3.8km open water swim and felt in control.”

KAIZEN in Triathlon: The Daily Grind That Wins Races

Triathlon doesn’t reward sporadic bursts of motivation. It rewards consistency. And KAIZEN is its secret sauce.

Whether you're building aerobic base in Zone 2, mastering the high-cadence shuffle run, or finally syncing your breathing with your pedal stroke (hello, locomotor respiratory coupling), KAIZEN says: 

“You don’t need to be perfect today. But be a fraction better than yesterday.” If you improve by 1% every day, you will be approximately 37 times better by the end of the year. This is due to the power of compounding, where small daily improvements accumulate over time. 

One extra drill. One better fueling choice. One stronger mindset rep. Stack those for 12 weeks and what do you get? Momentum. Fitness. Confidence.

KAIZEN for the Executive-Athlete

Let’s not pretend life isn’t chaotic. As execs, we juggle QBRs, board politics, and workouts squeezed into dawn patrol hours, with social obligations and family life.

KAIZEN helps here too. You don’t need to overhaul your calendar. You need 30 focused minutes. A better warm-up. A smarter recovery protocol. A refined pre-race routine.

Apply the same method you’d use to improve a sales funnel or supply chain. Diagnose, tweak, test, iterate. You’re not aiming for revolution. You’re playing the long game.

The Real Payoff: Identity Shift

The power of KAIZEN isn’t just in race results. It’s in who you become along the way.

You become someone who:

• Shows up regardless of weather or workload and enjoy it.
• Believes in long-term ROI, not short-term dopamine
• Understands that every session, no matter how small, is a brick in the fortress

This is what our core GREAT ENDURANCE mentality is built on:

Don’t forget. It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey!”

BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:

1. At first the consistent rhythm is more important than the volume. Plan a 20min effort 6 times per week. A walk a lunch, some steps in front of the TV, bike to work, …
2. Block 15 minutes per week to review what got 1% better — even in life, not just sport.
3. Track wins, no matter how small. Momentum loves evidence. Success breeds Success.

Share this blog/newsletter with your friends, family, and colleagues who are also pursuing a sportier and healthier lifestyle!

Luck Plays a Role in Success, but don’t Bet on it.

If you’ve ever watched a successful athlete, executive, or entrepreneur being interviewed, you’ve likely heard the phrase: “Honestly? I was just lucky.”

It’s a humble admission, and sometimes it’s even true. But it’s also misleading. Luck exists. It can give you a head start or hit you with setbacks you never saw coming. But let’s be clear:
Luck is not part of the structural formula for success. It’s an additive,  not a multiplying force. And understanding this difference changes how we pursue progress in both sport and leadership.
​
How did you get to the situation so that you recognized the opportunity, were able to leverage it and were able to take advantage of it.

The Real Formula for Success

In coaching, in business, and in life, I work from a foundational model I call the Formula of Success (TFoS): Success = Preparation × Vision × Courage + Luck
These three multiply each other. If any one of them is zero, the product is zero. Without preparation, courage becomes reckless. Without vision, opportunity remains hidden. Without courage, vision is never acted on.

And luck? It’s simply an add-on. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it hinders. But it never builds the house.

Why the Additive Distinction Matters

This difference, additive versus multiplicative, is not just semantics. It shapes how we respond to circumstances.

If you believe luck multiplies your outcomes, you overestimate its power. You might start chasing serendipity, waiting for a break, or blaming randomness when things fall apart.
But if you accept that luck is merely an additive variable, you keep control. You focus on the factors you can influence - your P, V, and C - and accept that luck will show up when it does. It may help. It may hurt. But it won’t define you.

In fact, the stronger your preparation, vision, and courage, the less impact luck has on your trajectory.
 
Luck in One Aspect of Life, Does Not Equal Luck All Around.

Let’s look at Steve Jobs.

Many people credit his success to timing and luck - and yes, there were elements of that. He met the right people at the right moment, during a technological boom.

But Jobs also experienced extraordinary bad luck. He died at just 56 from a rare and aggressive form of cancer. All the vision, courage, and preparation in the world couldn’t stop that diagnosis. That wasn’t a result of choices or strategy. It was just… unlucky.

But here’s what matters: his legacy wasn’t built by luck. It was built by years of relentless preparation, bold decision-making, and a relentless drive to build products that changed how the world lives and works.

His story underscores that success has to be seen in multiple ways. Don’t focus only on career or monetary objectives. Everything is important until your health or family are in danger. Try to realize that on your journey to success and see the successes you have in other fields.

The Executive-Athlete Takeaway

Whether you’re running a company, training for a triathlon, or navigating a major life transition, waiting for luck is a losing strategy. It may show up, but you can’t control when, how, or for whom.

What you can control:

• How you prepare each day
• How aware are you of  your surroundings and your path forward
• How bravely you take the next step

Conclusion:

Luck is always present either positive or negative. You want to make sure you need it the least and maximize the effect when you get. The beauty of luck that on average you will be lucky 50% of the time. 

Luck is always present either positive or negative. You want to make sure you need it the least and maximize the effect when you get. The beauty of luck that on average you will be lucky 50% of the time. You might hit a stroke of bad luck now, but know that in the next phase you might get lucky. Alternatively, when you get lucky, count your blessings and prepare for potentially a some bad luck later on. 

Success is not a destination, but a journey.


Don’t forget. It is the small daily steps that turn into positive habits, patterns, and beliefs ingrained in body and mind. Enjoy the journey!

BONUS TIPS COACH GLENN:

• Treat luck as an occasional bonus or obstacle, not a pillar of your plan.
• Focus on strengthening your P × V × C so consistently that luck becomes irrelevant.
• When setbacks come (and they will), you’ll have the internal foundation to adapt, overcome, and keep moving and realise that whilst you may be unlucky at one element in life. Try to see the other elements that are going well for you. Ask yourself would you want to trade?

Share this blog/newsletter with your friends, family, and colleagues who are also pursuing a sportier and healthier lifestyle!