Stacking W's means chaining small wins — winning the alarm battle, making your bed, prepping the night before — so each win builds momentum toward the next, until your whole day is moving in the right direction. This is crucial to making progress in any area of your life — physical, business, professional, personal. In this Physical Friday I walk through the morning win stack, what a winning day looks like for a fishing guide leaving the dock at 5 a.m., and why twenty banked wins make any loss easy to absorb.
Watch now: press play in the player above and follow along.
A quick note: the original podcast audio feed for this episode is no longer available, so the video above is the best place to watch and listen to this Physical Friday.
Stacking W's means chaining small wins together to build momentum. If you have a small win, you are more likely to go after another win, then a bigger one, and a bigger one after that. It works in your physical life, your business life, your professional life, your personal life — anywhere. The whole day's momentum starts with the very first win.
Winning the alarm battle. Do not hit snooze. Get out of bed and move. When you say no to that alarm clock and hit snooze, it starts you on a downward spiral for the whole day — and when you win it, you have just said yes to momentum and started moving in that direction.
Because it is a W stacked immediately on top of another W. You got up on time, you made your bed, and you are cruising — two wins before most people have opened their eyes. From there you stack water, nutrition, reflection time, a journal entry, a workout, a shower, clean clothes, and by then nothing is going to stop you for the rest of the day.
For a guide leaving the dock at 5 a.m., the preparation the night before is a win. Win the alarm battle, have a healthy lunch already prepared — win. Boat in the water before the customer arrives, tackle ready, every knot checked once or twice, boat clean, bait caught, cooler prepared, plan made the night before with plans B, C, D, and E, a chat with the other guides on the dock — by the time customers show up you have won twenty things and the day is moving in the right direction.
Don't let it get you down. It is much easier to stay positive when you have already had twenty wins and you realize it, so a loss is not a big deal — keep moving. Then at the end of the day you start prepping for tomorrow, which is the first win of the next cycle.
Physical Friday is my weekly fitness series for fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen — training, nutrition, and mindset episodes like this one on momentum, built to keep you in the game for life.
Here is the sequence I walk through in the episode, from the alarm to the end of the day.
If morning workouts don't work for you, that is fine — you can still stack every other W and the evening workout will be no problem after a day of crushing it. The full sequence is in the episode above.
Your day starts by winning the morning, and the first thing you can do to win the morning is win the alarm battle. When you hit snooze, you said no — and that no echoes through the whole day. When you get up and move, you said yes to momentum. I explain why this single moment carries so much weight in the episode above.
The guide version of this is my favorite: lunch prepped, boat in the water early, tackle checked, knots perfect, boat clean, bait caught, cooler packed, plan made with backups B through E. Every item is a W, and by the time the customers step aboard you have already won twenty things. I walk through the whole dock routine in the episode above.
You are going to have times when things don't go the right way. Are you going to let that get you down? No — it is much easier to stay positive when you have already had twenty wins and you know it. I talk about how momentum absorbs the hits in the episode above.
Listen or watch: the full breakdown, with every detail, is in the episode above.
Momentum is not a mood — it is a stack you build one small win at a time, starting with an alarm clock you refuse to negotiate with. Win the morning and the rest of the day tends to fall in line.
Tomorrow morning, try it: no snooze, make the bed, and count your W's until lunch. You will be surprised how high the number gets.
stacking W's · momentum · winning the alarm battle · making your bed · morning routine · night-before preparation · fishing guide mornings · journaling · reflection time · arriving fifteen minutes early · Physical Friday · Saltwater Experience
Physical Friday is my weekly fitness series for fishing guides, anglers, hunters, and outdoorsmen — the training, nutrition, and mindset to stay in the game for life. Watch and listen to every Physical Friday episode from Tom Rowland.
I'm Tom Rowland, a professional fishing guide based in the Florida Keys, host of the Tom Rowland Podcast, and the longtime host of the Saltwater Experience television show. On the podcast's Physical Friday series I share the training formats, nutrition habits, and mindset tools I use to stay strong enough to fish, hunt, hike, and keep up with my kids — short, practical episodes built for guides, anglers, and outdoorsmen who want to stay in the game for life.
Subscribe to get the latest episodes, show notes, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.