In the first ever episode of the Compound Commitment, I discuss the importance of small actions in achieving success, drawing parallels to the growth of bamboo.
I share personal stories of setbacks and triumphs in my journey from a part-time strength coach to a successful entrepreneur and financial advisor.
This episode emphasizes the significance of building systems, creating a roadmap for financial success, and the compounding effect of daily habits on wealth, health, and happiness.
“Hard work is the dream”
Mike Nilson
Key Takeaways:
- Success comes from stacking small wins over time.
- Bamboo grows silently for years before it shoots up.
- You don’t rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your systems.
- The hard work is the dream, not just the end result.
- Setbacks are part of the journey; keep pushing forward.
- Creating a wealth plan is essential for financial success.
- Small daily actions can lead to significant changes over time.
- Happiness is derived from meaningful relationships and experiences.
- Trust the process and stay consistent in your efforts.
- Investing in yourself and your knowledge pays off in the long run.
Full Transcript
Welcome to the Compound Commitment, where small actions create big results. I’m your host, Mike Nilson. Join me every Tuesday as we build the daily habits that compound into wealth, health, and happiness.
A lot of people think success comes from big dramatic moves. But the truth is everything great, whether it’s money, fitness or happiness, comes from stacking small wins over time. And that’s what this podcast is all about. Showing up, taking small steps and letting those small steps compound into something great. So today I want to start this journey with a story that shaped how I see success.
It’s a lesson I learned at Gonzaga, but one that I didn’t fully understand until years later. It’s about bamboo, and it explains how the important things in life grow. When we built Gonzaga’s Basketball Performance Center, we covered one of the weight room walls in bamboo. And it wasn’t just for looks, it was a symbol, a reminder of how success actually works. You see, bamboo is different from most plants.
If you plant a bamboo seed and water it every day, nothing happens for the first five years. No sprout, no visible progress, just dirt. But beneath the surface, something powerful is happening. The roots are stretching deep, forming a foundation. And then almost overnight, in year five, bamboo shoots up over 90 feet in just six weeks. But here’s the thing, that explosion of growth isn’t magic. It’s result of years of silent progress. If you had stopped watering the seeds in year three or four, you’d never see the payoff.
And that’s how compounding works in every area of life. Whether you’re training for a sport, investing your money, or building a business, at first it feels like nothing is happening. You show up, put in the work, and it looks like no results. But what you don’t see is the foundation being built beneath the surface. And when the growth finally kicks in, it happens fast. But I didn’t always understand this. Early in my career, I was a part-time strength coach, passionate about basketball, but struggling to make ends meet. After playing a year of pro ball overseas, my wife Rhiannon and I moved in with my parents during the off season. And I spent the whole summer working on my game, excited to head back to Germany.
But the night before I was supposed to fly out, I got a call from the team telling me that they didn’t need me anymore. There was no apartment waiting, no contract, no paycheck, just a crushing sense of failure. And that night laying on my parents’ couch, I was lost. My dream had just been ripped away and I had no backup plan. And so over the next few months, I scrambled to find a new overseas team playing in the LA Summer League and chasing every lead. But by December, I had to accept the truth. My basketball career was over. And with no money and no direction, we borrowed $500 from Maria and his mom just to move out of my parents’ basement. And that was the moment I knew it was time for the next chapter. I had fallen in love with strength and conditioning while playing hoops at Gonzaga. And now I felt a calling to help athletes get stronger, faster, and more resilient.
So when I was offered a job as a part-time assistant strength coach at GU, I was fired up. It felt like a dream had come true. I was stepping into a career that I was passionate about and working for a program I loved. What more could I ask for? And then came a moment I’ll never forget. The first week on the job, I was at a team dinner when a booster pulled me aside and said, “Congratulations on the new position. Now what are you going to do to make money? You know you don’t make much as a part-time strength coach.”
And I just stood there frozen. I forced a smile, but inside I was devastated. That whole weekend I was in a fog, questioning everything. I had just started my dream job, but for the first time I realized that passion alone wasn’t going to pay the bills. And so that Monday morning I showed up to work, still feeling defeated.
And that’s when a friend asked me if I’ve ever read the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad. And I hadn’t. So he invited me over to play the board game, Cash Flow. And that night, it all clicked. I saw money differently, not just as something that you work for, but as something you make work for you. And that moment changed everything. I became obsessed. I listened to the audio book over and over. I was so fired up.
But when I told Rhiannon about my plan to start buying real estate, she burst into tears. She had grown up watching late night infomercials about get rich quick schemes and thought it was all a scam. And I didn’t realize how much a person’s childhood can impact the way they see the world. But here’s what I love about my wife. She was willing to do the hard work of change. Now it took some convincing, but eventually she not only saw the vision,
She committed to making huge sacrifices right alongside me. And it was then that we decided that instead of saving money for our first home, we were going to save for an investment property. And we cut every unnecessary expense. And Rhiannon babysat after work while I trained athletes on weekends. I even walked to work every day to save gas money and spent that extra time reading library books on real estate. And looking back, it still amazes me that we were able to save $2,000 a month while only making $15 an hour. And in just one year, we had saved $25,000 and bought our first property, a foreclosed fourplex near Gonzaga. And only one unit was livable, so we moved in and started fixing up the other three.
And I can still remember my first project, which was replacing a tenant’s window. I had measured this thing 20 times and with excitement, I made the trip out to Home Depot. But when I went to install it, I dropped the glass and cracked it. And so the second trip out to Home Depot, I wasn’t quite as excited. And later when I finally was nailing the trim back on the window, I cracked the glass again. And so now on the third trip to Home Depot, I was completely flustered and ended up just buying plexiglass. And I have countless stories like this, but the lesson is that the setbacks didn’t stop us.
We finally fixed up the fourplex, rented it out, and within a year had saved enough for another down payment. But instead of buying a home to live in, we bought another rental in the Gonzaga area. You see, it’s really amazing how fast your savings can grow when you have cash flow on properties and you stick to a budget. And now we wanted to buy another rental, so I spent days walking the neighborhood, dropping off handwritten letters to homeowners, asking if they’d consider selling their property. And every time we saved enough for a down payment, we bought another rental and pushed off buying our dream home. We repeated this process again and again, eventually acquiring over 20 houses and multiple commercial properties. You see, for years, it felt like slow progress. But we were watering the bamboo, and the growth was finally compounding.
And around the same time we bought our first rental property, two friends approached me with an idea to start a physical therapy and sports performance business. Now, despite my business degree, I had no idea how hard launching a startup would be. We looked around and we found cheap warehouse space in a rough part of town and then recruited friends and family to help rip up carpets and paint the building. And our office had no heat. So in the winter, we sat in meetings wearing stocking caps and parkas. And for the first six months, none of us took salaries because we were focused on paying the bills. But it was the same principle as bamboo. You put in the work, you stay consistent and trust that the growth will come. And sure enough, it did. 20 years later, we’ve expanded U-District to three locations, built a team of over 60 professionals, and created a business that compounded over time.
And these experiences taught me something critical about success. You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. And success is just a system of small daily commitments that stack over time. Arthur Brooks is a bestselling author and Harvard professor that believes that happiness is made up of three macronutrients. Now, I define these macronutrients as memories, meaning, and mastery. And according to his research, a portion of our happiness comes from creating lasting memories with loved ones. A second portion comes from finding meaning or purpose in life. And the third comes from the feeling we get from accomplishing challenging tasks.
And I just love the idea that one third of our happiness comes from doing difficult things. And so when I think about what made me the happiest in my journey, it wasn’t hitting financial milestones. It was actually the process. And Kobe Bryant said something similar when the Lakers retired his jersey. He told his daughters that if you work hard, dreams come true. But then he corrected himself because what he realized was that the hard work is the dream. The early mornings he spent on the track and the late nights in the gym, that was the best part. And it’s the same when I look back on my journey, my best memories were the long days fixing up rentals with my brothers, freezing with my partners in our office at U-District, and working late into the night next to Rhiannon. That was the dream.
And now I realize that everything I’ve done, from building a real estate portfolio, starting U-District PT, and working with some of the best athletes in the world at Gonzaga, has led me to this next chapter. For years, my focus was on helping athletes maximize their physical potential.
But along the way, I started noticing something. A lot of these same athletes, disciplined, hard-working, and committed, had no roadmap for life after the game. They put in the reps in the weight room, mastered the details of their craft, but when it came to money, investing, and planning for the future, no one had taught them how to apply that same discipline to their finances. And it’s not just athletes. I’ve seen it with entrepreneurs, professionals, and even people at the peak of their careers. They’re working hard, but their money isn’t working for them. They’re making great plays, but they don’t have a game plan for long-term wealth. And that’s why I made the decision to take everything I’ve learned about compounding and bring it into the next chapter of my career as a financial advisor at Ten Capital. Every day I’ll be working with people to help them build financial game plans that align with their goals.
And every week on this podcast, I’ll be breaking down the mindset, strategies, and small daily actions that will help you compound your wealth, health, and happiness. Whether you’re just getting started or you’re already building momentum. Because here’s what I know. The same principles that built my business, that helped me grow my investments, and that allow me to keep doing what I love and strength and conditioning, well, they work for anyone willing to put in the reps. And just like with bamboo, the key isn’t looking for quick results. It’s staying consistent, watering the seeds and trusting the process.
And so now I want to help you take action. If you’ve made it this far, I know you’re serious about growth. And that’s why I’ve created three 30-day commitments designed to help you build momentum in the area of life that matters most to you right now. If you’re here to compound your wealth, I put together a free 30-day course o help you create a wealth plan, something most people never take the time to do. Over the next 30 days, I’ll send you a simple, actionable step each day to help you grow, protect, and share your wealth. And by the end of the challenge, you’ll have a clear roadmap for your financial future. And if you’re looking to compound your health, I’ll walk you through the simple daily habits of eating, moving, and sleeping that I use with my college and my pro athletes, habits that create sustainable, long-term health.
Each day, you’re going to get a short lesson in action step to help you fuel your body, move better, and recover like an athlete. No fads, no extremes, just small, proven habits that make a massive impact over time. And if your focus is compounding your happiness, I’ll send you a daily email with simple, science-backed ways to strengthen your relationships, create meaningful moments and find purpose in your life. These are the habits that lead to real, lasting happiness. Not just short-term pleasure, but deep fulfillment that compounds over time. And here’s the best part. It’s completely free. No catch, no strings. Just 30 days of simple, proven actions to help you build momentum and create real, lasting change.
So head over to compoundcommitment.com, choose the 30-day commitment that fits your goals and get started today. And don’t forget to subscribe. I’ll be here every Tuesday bringing you strategies, stories, and expert insights to help you stack small wins and build a better future. Small actions, big results. I’ll see you next week.