Ep 735 | You Can Be Anywhere in Five Years

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. I want to talk about a quote that, that I've shared here at No Days Off before, and it's something I heard from a mentor of mine a handful of years ago. This individual stated to me and a group of us in a, in a room one day, he said, you realize that you can be anywhere you want to be in 5 years. Pretty simple, right? You could be anywhere you want to be in 5 years. Now, while it may sound a little abstract, and I think it does sound a little bit motivational, It's actually pretty damn true. If you, if you break it down, you think about your life, you think about what you've accomplished thus far. Put yourself, you know, 5 years ago. Here we are in 2026 as we're recording. Think about 2021 and how far you've come. It feels like decades ago was only 5 years ago. But think about all of the progress you've made without even being so much focused on where can I possibly be in 5 years at that that degree of focused questioning, you can truly do anything or be anywhere you want to be in 5 years. I'm thinking about this quote a bit this week because earlier in the week, Indiana University won the National College Football Championship. And, and in doing so, Indiana football gave us a very real very measurable case study of what it actually looks like to be anywhere you want to be, not just in 5 years. They did it in about 2 years. And the, the key figure in this story is a guy we talked about just a week or two ago, Kurt Cignetti, the head coach of, of Indiana. So let's break down Indiana football. You don't have to be a sports fan. To follow along, you're going to understand what I'm talking about here. Indiana football is not exactly, or has not been known as this, you know, uh, type of dynasty or program like Miami, the team that they, they play, the school that they played the other night, or Alabama or Oklahoma. Indiana football is not what we'd call a blue blood program. As a matter of fact, It's historically been one of the weakest programs in all of college football. Before Coach Signetti had arrived, Indiana had never won 10 games in a season. And we're not talking like Indiana football has been around for 10 or 20 or 30 years. This is a program that's been around for 130 years or something like that, something crazy. They had one Big Ten title, the conference that they plan And that was in 1945. In the 3 seasons prior to Cignetti's arrival, the team won 9 games and lost 27. They were and have always been routinely picked to finish near the very bottom of their conference. As a matter of fact, they were the losingest program in college football history. Not my opinion, like they literally had accumulated more losses than anybody else in college football. This was not a team that was just a player or a coach away from turning the corner. This was a program that had decades and decades of structural losing. Now, this matters because it eliminates the, you know, they were already pretty close argument. They were as far away as one can be. Kurt Cignetti arrives to the program in 2023. He's hired at the end of the '23 season. It wasn't— he wasn't considered a flashy hire. There wasn't tremendous media hype around him. He, as a matter of fact, didn't have what we would call a 5-star recruiting class that was waiting for him. What was known about him though was, was his track record. He had won every single place he'd coached. He was known for taking over underperforming programs and, and getting results rather quickly. His head co— his head coaching career record before Indiana was well over.700, so he won more than 70% of his games. Coach Cignetti did not sell patience, he sold standards. In year 1, in 2024, in his very first season, the program went 11-2, won 11 games, 2 losses. It was the first 10-win season in, you know, since 19— uh, since— actually, no, it was the first 10-win season they ever had. While they won the title, the conference title, in '45, they didn't win 10 games that year. It was the first 10-win season in school history. They made the college football playoff. They finished ranked in the top 10. This was in year 1. Now, that alone would have been the greatest single season in program history. That happened in one year after he took it over. This was not a 5-year rebuild. It was very clear that it was not a 5-year rebuild. It was not a let's wait until my guys get here. It was success in year one. Now in year two, this past season, the 2025 season, Indiana went 16-0. They won the conference championship, the Big Ten Championship. They beat Alabama, they beat Oregon. And then they eventually beat Miami in the title game. They won the national championship, the first football national championship in school history. They also became the first, uh, college football program to go 16-0, win 16 games, since like Yale in 1894. And the program essentially went from what was considered an afterthought to a national champion in just 2 seasons. Now that is not momentum, that's not a hot streak, that is total transformation. So let's bring it back to the original quote, "You could be anywhere you want to be in 5 years." I think there's an important clarification here. The quote does not mean sit around for 5 years and hope things improve. What Indiana shows us is that if you change your standards, your systems, and your expectations immediately, your trajectory could very much change immediately, even if that full outcome takes time to show up. Coach Cignetti did not wait 5 years. He compressed time by changing behavior literally on the first day he showed up. Now, what actually changed? See, Indiana didn't win because they suddenly out-recruited everybody. Like Ohio State and the others that typically, you know, got the best players. They didn't win because they got lucky. They didn't win because they reinvented football or were running some plays or schemes that nobody's seen before. They won because of what I would consider to be operational changes. They had very clear expectations for players and staff. They had immediate accountability. There was much less tolerance for you know, that's how we've always done it sort of, sort of mindset. There were fewer excuses that were being used, specifically excuses tied to the program's history. Coach Cignetti took a very, very simple approach. He evaluated everything honestly. He cut out everything that didn't work. He doubled down on what did work. And then he got into action. That was not inspirational. That was very managerial. Now, why does this matter for, for you, for our listeners? I think that Indiana football is a, is a really good reminder of something that, that may be considered uncomfortable. Most organizations are not 5 years away because of lack of a lack of talent. I know we default to that, but that's not why most organizations are potentially 5 years away or not 5, 5 years away. It's not lack of talent. They're 5 years away because their standards are unclear, the accountability is inconsistent, they're not making quick decisions, and maybe they're using their history as an excuse. Indiana football had every reason to say, hey, this is going to take time, this is, this is going to be a long rebuild, or even this isn't realistic. But they didn't say that. Coach Cignetti did not say that, and he got his players and his staff to buy in. They didn't say it either. They started acting like a a winning program before the scoreboard even began to reflect it. So the real lesson here: you can be anywhere you want in 5 years. In Signetti's case, in Indiana's case, it was 2 years. But it only works if you stop managing for comfort, if you raise your standards immediately, if you accept short-term discomfort, and if you stop defending the, the legacy systems. Indiana did not wait. They did not become elite because they were sitting around hoping for change. They became elite because they changed how they operated entirely, and the results followed faster than anybody expected. Well, except maybe Coach Cignetti. He's the only one that expected a 2-year turn. Now again, the big idea— you could be anywhere you want to be in 5 years. This team went from the cellar to the pinnacle of the sport in just a couple years. So when you reflect on, you know, what you have in your mind with respect to where you're headed, maybe your goals are a little low. Maybe you're not setting the bar high enough for yourself. Maybe you're thinking, man, 5 years is right around the corner, when in reality it's not. It is an awful lot of time to do virtually anything that you want to do. Some of you may think, gosh, I wish I could be a millionaire. Yeah, you could be a millionaire in 5 years or less. Gosh, I wish I ran a business that closed 20 times the amount of sales. Yeah, in 5 years, you do the right— you take the right steps, you could be there. I think most people overestimate what they can do in 1 year, and they underestimate what they— what can happen when, when standards actually change. In a, in a more significant period of time. Indiana didn't need 5 years. They needed a leader willing to act like the future mattered right now. And I think, I think that's the real takeaway. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]