Episode 297: 5 Concepts and Strategies for a High-Performance Transformation
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Welcome to the first Purple Patch podcast of 2024.
With a new year ahead, we aim to help you improve your focus and concentrate your energy on the things that will significantly enhance your performance in the most critical areas of your life.
At Purple Patch, the theme for the upcoming year is transformation. Regardless of your goals, mission, or purpose, we are here to help you transform. Our experience in high performance has taught us that personal transformation is not a quick fix, and there is no fixed start and end date for it.
Whether you are looking to achieve specific race goals, improve your performance at work or as a leader, or simply invest in your future self, this is an excellent year to transform how you approach your performance. True success is not achieved by merely thinking about the upcoming year as a temporary starting point. Instead, it requires a continuous evolution of one's approach towards performance.
In this episode of the Purple Patch Podcast, Ironman Master Coach Matt Dixon shares a set of proven strategies backed by peer-reviewed research that will empower you for success and set you on a course for a high-performance transformation.
These key concepts focus on reframing your mindset and establishing healthy habits that will enhance your daily performance and position you for the highest quality of life in the years to come.
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 04:18 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
04:19 - 05:45 - Word of the Week
05:52 - 10:11 - Matt's Newsings
10:19 - 32:59 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 297: 5 Concepts and Strategies for a High-Performance Transformation
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Full Transcript
Matt Dixon 00:00
I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere integrate sport into life.
Matt Dixon 00:24
I think you look terrific, at least on the outside. But what's going on on the outside is not really what drives your performance. No matter what arena you're chasing, better improvements in life, it's really important about what's going on inside. It's very difficult to understand what's going on with your physiology, especially across all of the aspects that drive our performance. Well, a tool that we leverage at Purple Patch is InsideTracker. By assessing your biometrics and combining it with the advice and expertise from the team of scientists and experts at InsideTracker, we get some really precise focus areas to filter out the stuff that will become distractions and instead dial in the habits and the interventions that are going to help you perform, across all aspects of longevity and performance. Things like your cognitive health, your strengths, inflammation, heart health, and everything that builds up to you becoming a high-performing machine, InsideTracker assesses it and gives you an action plan with simple actions that you can take so that you can go on and improve. And it's very, very simple. All you need to do is head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch and use this special code Purple Patch Pro 20, that's Purple Patch Pro two zero, it gives you 20% off everything at the store. I leverage it with my athletes, and you can too. You don't need to be a Purple Patch athlete, but what you do need to care about is improvement throughout 2024. And that's what we're here to help you with. All right, enjoy the show.
Matt Dixon 02:07
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon. And here we are, the year ahead, we're ready to go. How do you sharpen your focus, and put your energy into the elements that are going to be real game-changers in how you perform in the aspects of life that are most important to you? The theme for the year ahead for us at Purple Patch can be summarized by a single word - transformation. No matter what your goals are your mission, or your purpose, we plan to help you transform. Now our experience in high performance tells us that a process of personal transformation is not a quick fix. And equally, we don't have any fixed start and end date around this. Whether you're seeking specific race goals, improving in the workplace, or your role as a leader, or simply aiming to invest in your future self, this is a super year to transform how you approach your performance. Real success emerges when you think about the year ahead as just a starting point. A start for which you aren't going to evolve how you approach performance from then on. There's no magic training or exercise plan. There's no super fix or diet. Cold plunges aren't going to be the driving force that ends up changing your life. Today, what I want to do to kick off the year is frame our perspective and a set of proven strategies anchored in peer-reviewed research that are going to empower you for your success. Now what we're going to be talking about today is not athlete conversion therapy. Instead, it's a pathway for you to transform. You're going to improve your daily performance and also future-proof yourself for the very best quality of life that you can have for the years and even decades ahead. But before we dig in, what I want to do is start with a little bit of ukulele. Barry, you're well rested. You had a lovely break. Now get out and sing for us, ladies and gentlemen. It's word of the week.
Matt Dixon 04:33
Yes, folks word of the week and it is - evolve. It's our favorite saying evolve or die. And guess what it might come as no surprise, but in 2024 we plan to evolve, to grow, to improve. And one of our big projects relates to education and content, including this very show. You see we're planning to evolve the whole structure of the Purple Patch podcast over the coming months, maintaining some free educational content every week, but also expanding opportunities to enable you to learn at a deeper level on all aspects of health, sport and life performance. And so that's going to be a really exciting journey for you. Stay tuned, but we are going to plan on evolving the show and enabling you to get deeper into the subjects that are important to you, no matter what pathway you want to go down. And so for the word of the week this week? Well, to kick off the year, the same as we should always do grow and improve it is evolve. And with that, Barry, before we dive into the meat and potatoes, I just want to give you some news. And so, therefore, folks, it's Matt's News-ings.
Matt Dixon 05:52
Yes, folks, Matt's News-ings. And we've got a couple of things to go through today. And I will keep it brief. The first camp experiences - really what you might think of these as performance retreats. Now in the coming weeks, I'm going to head off to Kona, because we've got our sold-out camp that's kicking off at the end of January. But we now have two more opportunities for you to come and spend several days in a row in an immersive experience with me and other Purple Patch coaches. Now, these are fantastic educational experiences. They're incredibly fun, you get to remove the rest of your responsibilities from life and just invest in yourself. The first is in April in Napa, a fantastic camp that we've done multiple times before. And it's an exquisite experience with a high coach-to-athlete ratio. It is around somewhere around 15 athletes attending and we will have four to five coaches who can ensure that you get all the individual attention you need. Now these camps are for all levels and experiences, you don't need to be a serious athlete to attend, you just want to make sure that you want to improve. Heavy on education, skill acquisition, and a great immersive experience, the meals are a fantastic opportunity to get together with like-minded performance enthusiasts. And here's the best news, you don't need to be a Purple Patch athlete of any description. We welcome plenty of athletes who are not under our coaching banner. And if you are coached elsewhere, absolutely fine with us. We're even happy to collaborate with your coach to make sure you're getting the right type of work for you, relative to where you are. So it's Napa in April, and then South Carolina, in the foothills of the Appalachians there just outside of Greenville. It's South Carolina. And that's going to be in very early June. Now you can head to the website, PurplePatchPitness.com, and go down to the camps tab. They're both there and available. We've just got a few spots left in both of those camps. But if you'd like to join us, and then you are most welcome. It's a lot of fun, but it's also incredibly valuable to get together with a whole group of people. The second thing I want to bubble up is coaching globally. And I think there's an important point when we think about coaching when you end up being coached by anyone. It doesn't mean you're relinquishing control. You're not handing off the keys of the bus to someone else. Instead, what you're doing is leaning into the wisdom, the sounding board, and your guide so that you can be most successful on your journey. You own your journey. And what that means, is for you to get the most out of a coaching experience, it's so much more than a plan. In 2024, I want to encourage you not to follow a plan, but instead get coached. Your success ultimately emerges from so much more than just following a series of workouts. Breakthroughs happen, and transformation occurs, when you have a plan that integrates into your life. But in support of that, you have ongoing education to empower you across all aspects of health and performance. And you have your guide ongoing expertise with insights from all sorts of experts across the fields. Ultimately, perhaps the most important thing, is the support, the accountability, and the sense of belonging that emerges from being a part of a team, even if you're following your plan. So with Purple Patch, you don't get stuck in a very narrow field of view or expertise of a single coach. You get access and guidance from the whole Purple Patch coaching team and a wealth of experts in fields. So if you would like a complimentary chat as we kick off this year, and see how we might be able to help then just reach out to us at info@purplepatchfitness.com we would be delighted to have a conversation with you. Of course, all of the programs are also available on our website to review, PurplePatchFitness.com. And with that, let's inspire us in the year ahead. It's a good one to kick off the year, folks, the theme is transformation. It is time Barry, for the meat and potatoes.
Matt Dixon 10:19
The meat and potatoes - New Year, New Year. Goodness me, aren't we all excited, we're buckled up, we want to transform our performance, and we want to achieve our goals. Two observations that I consistently see every year, at this time of year - The first is an athlete kicking off the year with great ambition, and a clear set of racing goals. And they realize that to succeed with their goals, they would benefit from Yes, a plan. They do their homework, they engage in some - a training plan via a coach or an organization or maybe they just download it free off of the interweb. The second observation, following the holidays that included a little bit of excess, a person decides that this year is the year that they need to get in shape. I've got to sort myself out and get fit. And so here we are, they join a gym, or they begin an exercise plan. Now, perhaps they even include dry January, that's inspiring, no alcohol for a month, and they commit to it for the whole month to kick off the year. Very similar approaches in both of those observations, despite having very different goals. Maybe one leans more towards the couch potato, the other an ambitious athlete. But ultimately, the challenge is the same. Because you can bet your bottom dollar that both of these people will be right here at the same place next year, with the same goals, the same set of commitments and needs. But Seldom will they have truly succeeded. Neither of them will have transformed. And so the hamster wheel of performance frustration continues. There just isn't enough meat on the bone for these folks. They're only committing to a tiny and ultimately short-term piece of the puzzle that is required. And so with that, nothing's gonna change. And I'm afraid this is in the majority of athletes.
Matt Dixon 12:36
So as you sit there today, I want to make something really clear. You see transformation takes time. It's a process. And it can be a fun process. But it is a process. Sorry, I should translate that - it's a process. You see, when you truly go on a journey of transformation, success isn't staying dry for January, checking the box on a training plan, or making sure you adhere to showing up at the gym three or four days a week. What we're looking for as you go on a performance journey is some outcomes of evolving the way that you operate. And when you go on any performance journey, when we look at highly successful people across all arenas, we see two things that start to emerge. The first is what we like to label a performance baseline. In other words, a robust physical ready state. The second component is that by going on the journey, you have experiences that deliver lessons that set up the strategies and the habits of a high-performance mindset. Now, we went through a lot of that towards the end of last year in the show. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go back. But the key is those are the drivers that we're looking to get towards it goes well beyond the start and finish lines of any type of race, marathons, half Ironman, Ironman races, and it certainly goes beyond any New Year's resolutions. For you to show up and consistently perform, you need to establish a great physical ready state and you also need to become a ninja a master of management. Developing the mindset is going to help you get through all of the components that ensure that you can leverage that physically ready state for your highest performance possible, whether you're chasing world-class performance, whether you're just looking to shore up a better version of yourself. But what are the elements that we can break down that will help you deliver these two outcomes, a great high-performance mindset and a superb physical base layer? What are the elements that drive sustained high performance?
Matt Dixon 14:59
Well, today I'm gonna highlight five of them very simply, that we consistently see and ensure that we implement at Purple Patch. These five principles or elements apply to athletes, leaders, parents, and anyone chasing improved performance in any arena. And I think that's the important component to this because you might be listening today as a little bit more of someone who doesn't identify as an athlete. And that's okay. These principles that we're going to talk about today apply to you as much as they do to someone who is trying to finish an Ironman or even trying to win a world championship. This is about high performance across all aspects of life. And it's very simple. We're going to break it down into five concepts. Are you with me? Hopefully, this will be the kickoff of the end of your misery and the start of the catalyst of success. Concept number one. Are you ready? Five concepts, we're going to go through them one by one. And if you nail these five, no matter what you're chasing, as your mission and purpose over this year, you're going to be well served and set up to be more successful.
Matt Dixon 16:20
Concept number one of high-performance transformation establishes a broad perspective for success. What do I mean by that? Well, here's the stark truth for you. My guess is that you're never going to excel long-term by simply being one of those loyal and well-behaved puppies. I seldom saw one of my elite athletes sustain world-class performance, if they simply did what I asked them to do. They were active participants in the journey, the best, those that ended up becoming champions, consistently sought to learn, to chase and develop a deeper understanding of the why behind their training, and also developing a keen ability to self-manage. We used to joke that my success was my irrelevance over time. And the truth is that you might not be a world-class athlete, but you're the same. You shouldn't just follow a plan or an approach. For you to get better. For you to thrive, you need to think about and approach it as an opportunity to learn, to understand, and to develop your ability to self-manage your way through your journey to personal well-being. Think about it under a simple phrase, empowerment. For you to build your performance journey, you must adopt a learner's mindset or a growth mindset. I know that's very trendy nowadays. You shouldn't just check the boxes. Anyone who simply follows an approach without question, without deeper engagement, seldom excels. So the first thing you want to do is ask the question, why? Be curious, seek to understand, and then as you go on the journey, and develop experiences, aim to develop the tools to help you manage your program within the fluctuating conditions of life. And when you do that, you battle ready, you have the capacity, you cannot react, but respond with purpose. And that's going to give you control. So if you want to be successful, the first concept is to ensure that you adopt a broad perspective on what it takes to be successful. No plan, even if it's AI-generated, is going to give you your toolbox to self-manage. Concept number one is for the transformation of high performance.
Matt Dixon 19:12
Concept number two, for high-performance transformation, simply commit to the four pillars of performance. Now I realize this is a Purple Patch thing. The four pillars of performance - endurance, strength, nutrition, recovery. let's say it in layman's language - move your body every day, lift heavy things. Eat well and have a healthy diet ensuring that you're recovering including sleeping enough. When you build that recipe, and then you are equipped to transform over time. And so let's dig a little deeper into this. Just because you exercise every day or you train consistently doesn't mean that you're a High Performer. I have only ever seen sustained high performance across all arenas, sport, health, work, and life, when the person successfully adopts what I like to call a performance recipe, where they have key habits in nutrition, recovery, and sleep adopted within and in conjunction with an integrated program of endurance and strength driven exercise. It is when you have that holistic lens, and you think about your "program" in broad terms, that you drive your success. In other words, when someone begins at whatever their start line is, whether it's a training athlete, or someone just getting off the couch, and they commit to an approach that includes consistent daily movement of endurance activity, strength, and resistance training at least twice a week, a backbone of very simple healthy eating and hydration habits, and enough quality sleep and recovery to foster adaptations and readiness, something happens every time. They accelerate, they improve, they have predictable energy and performance gains, and they show up better across all arenas of life. But if you ignore any single element, and then you never deliver the same long-term results. And so your concept number two, for transformation in high performance is to adopt the four pillars of performance. Very simple.
Matt Dixon 21:46
Concept number three for high-performance transformation, is very simple, lean into expertise. There is a reason here, that the higher that you tend to go in organizations, the more likely it is that those people will reach out and seek external support. And guess what the same is true for athletes. Most champions only excel with a coach or a circle of experts around them. The higher the level of the performer in sports in life in business, the greater the odds that they value coaching, and surround themselves with experts that are going to help them on their journey. The key here is that embracing expertise is about so much more than relinquishing control. You're not giving the keys to the bus to someone else, you're not losing or removing your power autonomy, instead, leaning into expertise should be the accelerant in your performance. Remember, concept number one that we talked about, don't be a box checker, learn the why, and develop the ability to self-manage. You are still in control. It is your journey. That's the ultimate truth that will never end. But in any arena, true expertise should help you gain outsized exponential results. And why is that? Well, the expert is just that, an expert. They bring expertise in this field that you're looking to improve in. But if they're also worth their salt, they're also going to deliver more. They're going to educate, they're going to give you the tools so that you can manage yourself, they're going to be guided, sounding boards. They're going to be the person who helps you retain perspective when you live the life of driving towards performance in the weeds. And that is how you can amplify yourself. By having in many ways the bravery to lean into the expertise available to you. It is for me the optimal investment that someone can make, no matter what the arena you're chasing performance in.
Matt Dixon 23:58
Concept number four for high-performance transformation is consistency in the fundamentals. In other words, drive to the simple and repeatable. It is seldom that the highest performers that I've ever coached in my life are consistently trying to add more. Most of them are on a journey where they're asking, "What can we reduce? What can we remove?" I'll never forget Purple Patch Pro Tim Reid, who went from being a great athlete to a World Champion, not by adding more, but by reducing the elements that he was focusing on. He mastered throughout the 2016 season, just seven basic habits. And these were not complicated. Seven things. These included concepts such as going easy on the easy days, making sure that he was fueling post-workout every time, and prioritizing sleep. Very, very, simple actions that created the building blocks towards 95% of his performance potential. And what that gave him was control, freedom, and predictability, so that when he raced in the most important races, he could upscale, he could go to another level with freedom, with confidence, because he knew who he was. He understood his program. He didn't get there by adding something magical. Instead, he reduced an incredibly complex journey to World Championship performance, down to simple, actionable things that he could control. And so while you're getting peppered with new gadgets, diet approaches, and metrics, come back to the fundamentals, and master them first. And once you've got them, then you can think about adding other stuff that might help incrementally. There's a reason that at Purple Patch, we have a phrase, nail the basics, the nonnegotiable components that are going to help you transform your performance. We're looking for consistency, and predictability so that you can be in a Purple Patch in a more consistent manner. And that is concept number four, for high-performance transformation.
Matt Dixon 26:22
Concept number five for high-performance transformation is don't follow the lonely road, you might have individual goals, and you might train alone. If you think about the Purple Patch, pro squad, what they all had was their ambition. Being a part of that squad, they were training with their competitors - people that they had to race against and try and beat for the dollars, for the accolades, for the sponsorship money that would follow. And yet, they're a part of a team. They each had different stages of development. They each had various racing goals. But they all belonged. They all felt an affinity, a loyalty, a pride in being not a pro athlete, a Purple Patch Pro. And what that did, is that fostered the conditions of a highly effective team. Because they understood each other, they developed a sense of belonging and pride. But they also had a system that is critical to any individual improving. And that is a high degree of support, accountability, and collaboration. When you get a set of individuals aligned, under a shared mission and a unified purpose, despite having very different goals, even being geographically dispersed, something magical happens. It goes beyond you, it becomes us. And the output of that is better individual performance. And that's ultimately what you're after. But there's a bi-directional effect, that each of the individuals also contributes to a performance culture, you help others improve. Because being a part of a team, a squad, you have that deep sense of belonging, and you then have the opportunity to help others along their journey as they navigate. The impact and the positive result are bi-directional. That's how you create performance factories. That's how you drive individual performance.
Matt Dixon 28:43
So as you start 2024, this might be a journey for you about self-improvement, you might have just a deep desire to go and finish a 5k adopt really good habits across health, or go and train for an Ironman. It might be very individual, but your success is always always always going to be amplified. If you do it a part of a team, a part of a squad, a part of a group. And when you do, if you do, go up with some buddies and do it together, join Purple Patch and become part of our ecosystem, lean into it, invest in it. Because beyond checking the boxes of a workout, adhering to a diet, or making sure that you're hydrating enough to prioritize sleep -when you become a part of a group, I promise you, your chances of success and ultimately, the phrase or the word of our year, transformation, goes up exponentially. We see it every time. There is a reason that the Purple Patch pro squad, over 15 years, had such consistent results. Ironman champions male and female athletes, a rich history of long-term development, and a huge degree of retention to the squad. Most coaching relationships are two years in duration at the elite level, we have people on the program 7, 8, 10, 11 years that they were a Purple Patch Pro. That's not because I was just some magical coach. That's because we were a team, we were going on the journey together, despite them being competitors. Think about how you're gonna set up your journey and ensure that you're not doing it alone. It's incredibly difficult to remain committed, to navigate through the rough times, to have a certain degree of support as you go through some of the adversity and failure that you will face along a performance journey, and how you're held accountable to your actions and commitments that you've made by the team, by others. That's how you magnify. And that is our final concept of transformation to high performance.
Matt Dixon 31:11
Folks, that's a lovely way to kick off the year. I hope that helps set in mind five key concepts, and elements that you can apply to your life no matter whether you're Purple Patch or not. But of course, we're always here to help. We'll see you next time. Take care.
Matt Dixon 31:28
Guys, thanks so much for joining, and thank you for listening. I hope that you enjoyed the new format. You can never miss an episode by simply subscribing. Head to the Purple Patch channel on YouTube, and you will find it there and you can subscribe. Of course, I'd like to ask you, if you will subscribe, also share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now any questions that you have, let me know feel free to add a comment and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. As we commence this video podcast experience, if you have any feedback at all, as mentioned earlier in the show, we would love your help in helping us to improve. Simply email us at info@PurplePatchFitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show on the Purple Patch page and we will get you dialed in. We'd love constructive feedback. We are in a growth mindset as we like to call it. And so feel free to share with your friends, but as I said, let's build this together. Let's make it something special. It's really fun. We're trying hard to make it a special experience. And we want to welcome you into the Purple Patch community. With that, I hope you have a great week. Stay healthy, have fun, keep smiling, and do whatever you do. Take care.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
performance, coaching, patch, purple, journey, athlete, year, life, high performance, transformation, expertise, plan, simply, improve, transform, goals, adopt, concept, lean, success