- The Captains Log
- Posts
- Endurance and Ambition
Endurance and Ambition
The Art of Long-Term Success
Joshua Sprigg
March 30, 2025
Read time: Under 4 minutes
Before we get into the madness of the week…
Happy Mother’s Day to all the incredible mums out there, biological, adoptive, honorary, and everything in between.
You are the real backbone of families, communities, and let’s be honest, probably the reason most of us made it through childhood alive.
To my own mum, thank you. For the strength, the structure, the softness, and the sacrifices. You are my home base, always.
Now… let’s get into it.
This week caught me off guard, not because I didn’t know what was coming, but because of the pace and variety of what came my way.
We kicked things off on Monday with investor comms and presentations. Momentum is building fast. What started as an idea, a whisper of a vision called O, 18 months ago is now getting picked up at scale. A frightening scale, in fact. But it’s the good kind of fear. The kind that says you’re on the edge of something important.
Tuesday? Straight up to Wales for an NHS client visit, and like always in-person beats email every time. The result? A healthy, promising pipeline forming in the southern region. A real door-opener.
By Wednesday, I was loading up all the ADV biking gear before the sun rose, bikes and kit off to Spain ahead of our trip. Yes, it’s real now. On 1st May, we land in the north, and then… two weeks off-road, off-grid, surviving, and thriving with the boys.
Mixed into that was rugby training and matches for H, and to top it off? Drinks and networking with politicians curious about how O could support their campaigns. Wild mix of a week. But that’s life in motion.
And I wouldn’t change a thing.
MIND
Wired or Built?
Here’s the truth: not everyone is built for endurance. Not everyone can hold their ambition long enough to see it through.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, it just means for most people, it’s fleeting.
I genuinely believe some of us are wired differently. Not better. Just different. We can’t stop. We don’t want to stop. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse, I haven’t worked out yet.
But for those looking to cultivate ambition and stick with it? Here are a few practical hacks:
🔑 Set goals that are yours, not borrowed from others. If the ambition isn’t rooted in something you deeply want, the endurance won’t follow.
🧠 Visualise it daily. Seriously. Picture the goal. Feel the moment of achievement. Let it get under your skin.
📆 Make it measurable. Break your ambition into checkpoints. Momentum builds when you tick things off.
🧘♂️ Recover like it matters. Ambition dies when burnout wins. Rest is part of the game.
🌊 Be fluid, not rigid. The path will change. Let it. Just don’t stop walking it.
The mad ones, the “probably a bit clinically insane” types, we just keep going. We hold our vision tighter than anything else in our lives. It’s not discipline. It’s obsession.
And obsession? That’s where endurance lives.
BODY
The Vessel That Carries the Mission
You already know the line "healthy body, healthy mind" but let’s flip that:
If the mind’s committed, the body will follow.
But here’s the catch: you’ve got to listen to it.
Fuel it properly. Stretch it. Move it. Rest it. Challenge it. Repeat.
It’s not about looking good. It’s about feeling capable, capable of taking on the ambition you’ve set and staying the course.
Right now, I’m riding the momentum of early morning workouts (thanks to H) and longer walks in the daylight. Nature, movement, flow. All essential parts of long-term success.
If you’re serious about building something big, get your body on board. It will carry the mission when your mind hits a wall.
EXPLORATION
Spain: On Two Wheels, Off the Grid
This week’s exploration was in the prep.
We’re four weeks away from landing in northern Spain and riding ADV bikes from top to bottom. I’ll be on a Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled, a retro beast that’s as wild as the roads we’re taking.
Here’s the beauty of it though, everyone says “I wish I could do that,” and my answer is always the same: you can.
Flights? £22 from Gatwick to Bilbao.
Fuel? £10–£15 per tank (easy full-day ride).
Accommodation? Free - we’re wild camping.
Food? Spain’s still magic in that department.
All in? Around £100–£200. And yet, the sense of freedom, the brotherhood, the unplugged connection with nature and the machineit’s priceless.
And I'm doing it with my boys. What else could you want?
CHALLENGE
Yoga, Tea, and Tiny Wins
I’ve been walking past this yoga studio near home for months, and something clicked this week. I’m signing up. They do early morning sessions (6:30/7:00 AM) which is perfect before the chaos of the day begins.
This is part of a new challenge:
Create softness alongside strength.
The other ongoing win? Tea and sugar, we’re nearly there. Only 3 teas today and it's already past 5pm. Trust me, that’s huge for me… ha!
Now the challenge is consistency. Stack the wins. One by one.
Until next time
Final Thoughts 💭 | The Long Game
Here’s the real art of long-term success:
Hold the ambition tight, but don’t grip it so hard you burn out.
Move fast, but not frantically.
Rest without guilt, work without ego.
Obsess, but remember to live.
The vision only matters if you last long enough to bring it to life.
TL;DR 🚀 | This Week in a Nutshell
Investor energy is rising, O is becoming real on a scary-but-exciting scale.
Wales unlocked big NHS potential, Oxford saw the ADV bikes loaded for Spain.
Mind: Endurance + ambition = obsession + discipline.
Body: Listen to it. Move it. Train it. Trust it.
Exploration: Biking Spain on the cheap, off-grid, and wild.
Challenge: Yoga mornings inbound. Tea & sugar - controlled.
Final thought: Play the long game. It's not about who starts fastest, it's about who finishes.
Yours in exploration,
Captain Sprigg
"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."