Never Retire: Stop Waiting for the Big Break — Build Sparks from Small Wins

Because real change comes from what you stack daily, not what you wait for someday.

At 50, I don’t wake up thinking about retirement milestones or five-year plans. I wake up thinking: What small thing can I move today? The next ride. A new phrase in Spanish. One article drafted. These are the wins I can control.

Don’t mistake that for going small. Small wins aren’t apologetic. They’re deliberate.

They’re what make the bigger sparks possible: building Never Retire, launching and building Friki de Bici, buying an apartment in Valencia.

The fact is that obsessing over the long-term now can generate the type of anxiety that makes it difficult to get done what needs to get done today to make tomorrow’s dreams reality.

When Persistence Becomes the Signal You’re Ready to Move

In my recent Medium piece “When Persistence Becomes Stupidity,” I argued that there comes a point where staying put and grinding harder stops being brave—and starts being blind. Over time, you see more clearly what your setting refuses to give you: stability, meaning, ease in daily life, health, time. The shortcomings stop being annoyances, and start being structural.

It’s not about running away. It’s about recognizing that enough trial and error in the same place has shown you the parts that will never be enough. That’s when small wins begin to sharpen your vision of what a new setup might let you build—one where the wins can scale.

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How I Build Big Sparks from Small Wins

Here’s how I live this now:

• Spanish: each day I push a little — a conversation, a stumble, a correction. It feels small now. But 365 days later, I’ll see the shift.

• Friki de Bici: one video at a time, one ride, one edit. Compound reach.

• Income & Clients: one solid contract, seeking other projects because they make sense, not just because they pay.

• Spending pressure: choosing slightly higher rent or a purchase I don’t necessarily need as the stakes that force me to keep moving forward.

These “wins” are daily, gritty, sometimes invisible. But they stack. And when you look back, you realize you’ve built a foundation. That foundation is what made it possible to move abroad, to launch new projects, and to keep building instead of coasting.

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Why The Tension Between Staying vs Moving Matters

The tension between staying and moving, between persistence and stubbornness, always comes down to this: are you waiting for the big break, or are you building it one small win at a time?

Tom Petty sang it best — “the waiting is the hardest part.” But the truth is, waiting is optional. Small wins are how you stop waiting. They’re the sparks that make the bigger moves possible, whether it’s a new life abroad, a project that actually lights you up, or simply feeling sharper in midlife than you did in your twenties.

At this stage, the secret isn’t slowing down. It’s stacking wins until the spark becomes too bright to ignore.

On Monday, I’m recording a new Friki de Bici video where I ride my bike for three hours and only make left turns with some rules to keep it challenging and exciting.

If you want to support that important work, you can subscribe to Friki on YouTube or buy me a coffee. But the best way to keep both projects moving is with a Never Retire subscription. Because every small win — every post, every video — adds up to the bigger story I’m building here.