Episode 312: From Burnout to Breakthrough: A Tale of Triumph and Purpose with Ben Cooper
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Welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. This week we continue our series on Purple Patch Case Studies, where we hear first-hand experiences of time-starved athletes on their journey towards improved performance in sports and life.
This week, IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon welcomes Purple Patch athlete Ben Cooper to the show. Like most Purple Patch athletes, Ben has a lot on his plate. He is a managing director at a major real estate company based in London, and he is also a devoted father of a three-year-old. Despite his busy schedule, he juggles all his responsibilities while dealing with weekly travel obligations. Ben's life is complex and time-starved, but he is determined to make it all work.
Two years ago, when Ben was first introduced to Matt and Purple Patch Fitness, he struggled. Ben was dealing with exhaustion, burnout, and mental health challenges stemming from the stress of having a child during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many people at the time, he felt lost and overwhelmed. A former rugby player, Ben had lost his fitness, gained weight, had low energy, had terrible sleep, and had no idea how to break free from the negative cycle he was stuck in. In Ben's own words, he was surviving, not thriving.
Ben discusses his challenges in jumpstarting his athletic journey and the strategies he learned through his coaching relationship with Matt to incorporate movement into his daily routine. Ben and Matt discuss the profound impact this had on shifting Ben's mindset, ultimately leading him to happiness, control, improved health, and high performance in all areas of his life.
Ben's story is full of inspiration, perspective, and valuable lessons we can all apply to our lives. We hope that Ben's story motivates you to overcome any challenges you may face and take the initial steps toward achieving high performance in your athletic journey.
Associated Articles: Benefits of resistance exercise training in treatment of anxiety and depression
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - 05:26 - Welcome and Episode Introduction
05:33 - 11:28 - Coach's Corner
11:36 - 25:31 - The Meat and Potatoes - Episode 312: From Burnout to Breakthrough: A Tale of Triumph and Purpose with Ben Cooper
25:33 - 26:43 - Keynote Speaking and Leadership Program Announcement
26:45 - 43:40 - Ben Cooper Cont.
43:42 - 45:09 - 1:1 Coaching and Tri-Squad Program Announcement
45:10 - 59:17 - Ben Cooper Cont.
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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 sports into their lives.
Matt Dixon 00:22
We're going to be talking about high performance in today's show, guys. So I asked you the question: Does the brain drive the body? Or does the body drive the brain? Well, I think the truth is that they drive each other. High performance includes building a platform of health, what I like to call a performance base layer. And the oil that makes that machine run—well, it is a high-performance mindset, where we're emphasizing our brains. And guess what we understand as performance experts—what are the key elements that drive your performance? And many of them, it turns out, we can measure, we can impact through behavior modification, shifts in exercise or how we recover and sleep, nutrition, hydration, and even sometimes, when appropriate, some supplementation. This is all part of the puzzle; the team InsideTracker looks to improve, and it all wraps up into performance. By assessing your biometrics and combining them with peer-reviewed research and an action plan that is delivered directly from the scientists at InsideTracker, you can get highly specific on improving your health and daily performance. The team at InsideTracker even organizes all of the factors and information into really helpful categories so that we understand the impact of all of the elements of longevity and performance, whether it's your heart health, your stress levels, your cognitive function, or everything is broken down so that you have greater staying power and you can show up your very best. It's a powerful tool. Head to insidetracker.com/purplepatch and use the code Purple Patch Pro 20. You're going to get 20% off everything at the store. It's a tool that I leveraged myself, and it is also a central component of guiding any person that I coach to improve performance in aspects that are important to them, whether they're world-class athletes, business professionals, or a very busy, time-starved parent. Insidetracker.com/purplepatch and use the code; remember, Purple Patch Pro 20's going to give you a nice 20% off everything at the store. Alright, now let's get on with the show.
Matt Dixon 02:37
Hey, guys, just before we get going today, you're going to notice something different. In today's show, It's restructured, and there's a slightly different format to it. That's because at Purple Patch, we say evolve or die. That's what we, well, exist within. That framework is always looking to improve. As it relates to the show, we're always looking at ways that we can make information more relevant to you, more educational, and ultimately allow you to yield greater value from it. And so we decided to freshen things up a little bit—a little bit of an evolved structure—and it enables us to get to the meat and potatoes quicker so that you can lean much more heavily into the information that's going to be useful for you to improve your performance. I hope you enjoy it. It's all fresh, it's all-new, but of course, we get the same old, good education. And so with that, let's get on with the show.
Matt Dixon 03:37
And welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. As ever, your host is Matt Dixon. And folks, today's a special one. It is a special one. Welcome to the show, Purple Patch athlete Ben Cooper. Now Ben is a managing director at a major real estate company based out of London. He's got a young family. He has weekly travel. He has a massively complex, time-starved life. And two years ago, when I first met Ben, he was in a serious rut: exhaustion, burnout, mental health challenges, directionlessness, and overwhelm. He wasn't fit, he had low energy, he had terrible sleep, he was pretty heavy, and, quite frankly, he'd lost his path. He didn't know where it was going to lead him. In Ben's own words, he said he was surviving, not thriving. Today. As we have discussed, he is a prime example of a high-performing human being. He just finished his third marathon in 12 months. Not bad for a big old rugby player. He's engaged, happy, thriving, and in control. And his journey is packed with inspiration, perspective, and lessons for all of us to draw from. Folks, it is unmissable. I would be amazed if you didn't finish today's show and listen to Ben and think I can do it. Whatever is important to you, I can do this. And I'd be amazed if you didn't go out and take the first step today. And you know what? You would be right, You can. You can do it. It's great. But before we get going with a new section, we're going to do Coach's Corner.
Matt Dixon 05:33
Yes, Coach's Corner folks, it's a new section and a little opportunity for me to provide a little perspective on what's going on at Purple Patch, how we are coaching our athletes to hopefully help you apply to your lessons, and maybe talk about some of the latest research that's out there or provide some perspective. So anything that's going on in the world of performance, and I'm going to do this, I'm going to kick this off with a little sneak peek behind the curtain right now of Purple Patch. Because we are heading into the spring, at least in the northern hemisphere, things are heating up and things are getting very, very busy. Now that our athletes are competing, we're starting to have early-season racing, and we're driving towards fitness on that side. And other folks, it becomes a very, very busy time of the year because you're getting outside more, you've got more family activities, school events, if you've got families, plenty of travel, and everything else at work. So, as a coaching team, what are we doing right now? Where's our emphasis? What can I tell you about? Well, I'm not going to focus today on the exercise and prescription side of stuff; I'm going to talk more about the supporting elements. Because this time of the year, it becomes important for coaches to almost segregate and make sure that you're balancing your emphasis on education, discussions around movement, strength training, and exercise and endurance activity and everything, and everything on that side with the actual organizational side of elements, managing training or exercise within the scope of life, and supporting that training with a lot of the key components around nutrition, hydration, sleep, et cetera. This tends to be the time that it amps up. And so, as a coaching team, we try to focus on that component. How do you help an athlete manage themselves better and become better at real-time decision-making? Should I push through and do the workout that I've got planned? Or maybe I should make it something easy? Or even skip it together? How do I build habits that stabilize my energy or support my training in nutrition? What are the key aspects that I want to do to promote my opportunity for deep rejuvenation, aka sleep? All of these elements are my primary focus. I would say it's probably 50% of the coaching balance relative to exercise and movement. So that just highlights that a part of coaching is way more than what the actual session is. It doesn't matter whether you're training for an Ironman marathon or just training for life. The key component is where you're placing your emphasis as a coaching team. We are right now, as we go into spring, and I would say over the next two to three months, heavily invested in that side of things. So that is to kick off Coach's Corner. That's a lot of our education right now, trying to help people manage themselves better, to be better at supporting their energy, stabilizing their energy and health, becoming more resistant to sickness, and ensuring that they can show up every single day to perform in whatever is important to them. That's our heavy emphasis right now—50% with everything else. The second thing I want to talk about in Coach's Corner today is a little vignette for you from science because today we're going to be talking about Ben Cooper and his journey from mental health challenges and exhaustion to a high-performing human being. And what you're going to hear from Ben's story is that the first thing that he started was just to get moving. There's a whole bunch of things that make up high performance. We can segment our sleep, recovery, downtime, nutrition, hydration—all of these elements—but you can't change everything at once. You can't just throw spaghetti at the wall. And for Ben, the first thing that acted as a acted as a catalyst was to just take the first steps, move forward, and get consistent. And of course, that became the gateway that, over time, because transformation takes time, he could start to build and introduce other habits into the equation. And that's how, two years later, boom, he doesn't even recognize himself in two years, and it turns out that exercise and movement have a key direct impact on anxiety and depression. There is plenty of research out there; I'm going to highlight two right now. First, just this year, a couple of months ago, it was released by a team at the University of Limerick and Iowa State University, in which they assessed and proved a direct link between resistance training and improving all symptoms of depression and anxiety. Think about that: a tool that you have that is just heading out to the gym and doing some resistance training to reduce many of the symptoms that we associate with depression and anxiety—two thumbs up. There's also other research out there that showcases that daily movement can be as powerful as many antidepressant drugs as a tool to reduce anxiety and depression. Now, I'm not a doctor; I'm not prescribing anything. And if you are currently on some form of antidepressant, I'm not telling you to jump off it and just switch to exercise. Of course, you would do that under the care of professional medical help. But what I am endorsing is one thing that is rarely bad: moving your body and committing to the first steps. And you're going to hear that on today's show. And so what I want to do is go right into the meat and potatoes. Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ben Cooper.
Matt Dixon 11:36
All right, the meat and potatoes, and a guest that I've been harrowing around and badgering to get onto the show, incredibly excited. Ben Cooper, thanks so much for joining us.
Ben Cooper 11:48
Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me.
Matt Dixon 11:50
All right. It's an absolute delight. I think this is going to be a wonderful conversation. We are going to talk about a grudgingly old rugby player emerging to insurance glory, but we're going to go beyond that. As I like to always do on the show, I first dig into your background and a little bit of your life story. And then we have quite a personal story to talk about today. So why don't you first just paint the landscape? Tell the listeners where you grew up, what your background was—family, etc.
Ben Cooper 12:24
Yeah, so while I'm here, don't let the baby face fool you, Matt, so I'm in my late 30s. I grew up just outside of London. So basically, it is in a small town called Reading, which will mean a lot to British people and not a lot to others. It's not a town well known for being that exciting. So it's the kind of suburban just outside London. I grew up there. So it's the late 80s, early 90s. Educated in and around there went to sort of, you know, traditional UK schools, universities did the kind of whole traditional journey. Interestingly, and, I guess we'll come on to it a bit, I moved to London, presumably to a university, which is very traditional of what most people do in the UK, and ended up working in the real estate industry. So that's where I work now. Fantastic industry and an amazing firm, and we'll be talking about that shortly. And I'm now the managing director at the company, dealing with a whole array of different things. But focused within part of a real estate private equity firm. So you've got a really interesting firm and doing some cool stuff, trying to balance that with personal life and with having a family. So I've got a three-and-a-half-year-old, and he'll come up as part of the journey. So my wife and I've got a little boy. We live just in the middle of London now. Yeah, and try and balance all of those occasionally competing objectives from balancing each other out too much.
Matt Dixon 14:05
I mean, you are the epitome of a time-starved athlete; you're three and a half years old; you're very busy as the MD Managing Director; and your role at the organization involves, effectively, weekly travel, yeah? international travel across Europe.
Ben Cooper 14:22
Every week, I'm always somewhere pretty much, so now you know we'll come on to that in the context of being kind of time-starved, so it's finding time with your busy hours, the kind of hours that people would expect for that type of role. But also then building in travel and complicated travel and trying to make it home in time to get a little three-year-old into the bath and read some bedtime stories and do exercise, so trying to balance all those things with an amazing but demanding job and a job that I'm super proud to be doing something I love, but it's something that takes time, takes effort, and takes focus.
Matt Dixon 15:02
It does. And I want to make it because I've worked with you for a couple of years, and you're not just a father of over three and a half years; you're very, very active and involved as well. So you're navigating; you talk about getting into the bath, et cetera. That's it. I mean, you're not; you're a present and engaged father, because I know that's very, very important to you, as I said.
Ben Cooper 15:23
100%. Yeah, I mean, you know, like, like, a lot of parents. I mean, I'm. I can record far longer than this podcast on how much that's brought to me. But like, I'm a super involved dad; I love hanging out with a little guy. But it's also, I think, yeah, we'll come on to it. I think one of the things that I've had to learn over the last couple of years is that ability. You know, one of the guys that works here that I'm sure we will allude to later, who Matt also coaches and knows very well, is an incredible mentor to me in everything I do. And he once really wisely talked about that need as you get further into life and have the sort of family side of things to work out a way of being present in everything you do. And I think for me, that's one of the things that I'm most focused on: trying to be 100% present as a dad and as a husband, and combining that with sort of personal goals and professional ambition at the same time.
Matt Dixon 16:19
Well, I tell you, everything that that young man knows, he learned directly from me. So before we get going on the journey, I do want to know your sporting background, or I want the listeners to know your sporting background. So growing up, sports grew up in England, the West Side, London, et cetera. So you're an elite endurance athlete. Is that accurate?
Ben Cooper 16:42
Not. Not. So before this stuff we've done, I've never run an endurance race in my entire life. I've never run a race outside of school or cross country. So I'm a rugby player. That's me; that was my thing. I was a pretty decent rugby player. I was, you know, a teenager. I was, you know, getting tryouts for professional teams and playing in county first teams and that kind of thing. So good, good standing, I took that through to university. You know, for anyone who doesn't know much about rugby, it's a physical sport. Again, if you're like U.S. listeners who don't know, it's probably the closest thing that would be akin to American football. And the position I played again, just to give you an idea of whether I'm a super live, gazelle-like marathon runner, like Matt, I'm, the position I play will be closest probably to a tight end would be the best analogy. So I'm
Matt Dixon 17:38
I am showing you your knowledge of American sports.
Ben Cooper 17:41
Yeah, so tall, heavy, you know, physical contact—that kind of game. So the opposite of an endurance athlete, to be honest, would be my athletic background.
Matt Dixon 17:52
Well, let's start to dig into the details, and then you've got this. You've got this rugged rugby player who is very busy and time-starved. Let's go back a couple of years to when we first met, and I'm going to let you just paint the landscape. And in your own words, explain our journey together. And, I guess, the nice way to maybe kick into it was, why don't you paint the landscape of where you were at the time, which was a challenging time for you? So it is as best as you can sort of go back a couple of years and just give listeners an insight into that.
Ben Cooper 18:28
Yeah, absolutely. So we met in 2020–21, I guess. Yeah. So. And yeah, I was not doing well, mentally or physically. And those are massively connected. And we'll talk about that. But you know, I've at various points in my life struggled with my mental health; that's been something that's kind of always been there and has always been manageable. It's, you know, I've worked with a lot of great people to help with that. And I've always done okay. And that's, that's been, you know, to be candid, that's generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and those sorts of things. Those haven't been extremely prevalent things; they've just been some episodes. But I found the period post-pandemic tough. You know, a lot of people I found found the experience of the pandemic difficult. And my son was born during that period. So at the back end of 2020, he was born in October 2020. And he was born prematurely as well. So we spent a few years in intensive care and a few weeks in intensive care. Yes. We spent about six weeks in intensive care with him needing a lot of support and feeling like we'd never get out, and it was one of those situations where, yeah, we were the only thing I could do was go to the hospital. I couldn't see friends. I couldn't see family, and we very strictly upheld the rules, which was the right thing to do. But that was a difficult thing to do. And certainly, during that first period, my wife was in the hospital with him. So I was kind of sad, leaving them in intensive care and going home on my own. And for a few reasons, I think that then, followed by the period afterward, kind of pushed me over the edge a little bit, and I was burned out as effectively as I was; I was just mentally depleted. And I'd lost so much of the resilience that had been able to help me navigate some of the things that I found more difficult historically. You know, then we got back post-COVID. And, you know, we were in a period where, again, to get to go back to my role, my role involves traveling, as Matt mentioned, and that traveling fell away, certainly in the first lockdown, and then we got into the second lockdown, and traveling sort of opened up, and there were things that I had wanted to do and needed to go and do. But I hadn't been able to; I couldn't go anywhere; I couldn't do anything. So I gradually opened up on that, saying that those were trips that I put off and put off because we just couldn't do them and eventually had to do them. But that would also mean I would go away on a business trip; I would have to drive across Europe, which would be like 12 hours on the road, with loads of nasal swabs to get into different places and all of that fun. And then I get home, and I've been quarantined for a couple of weeks and am unable to go anywhere at all with a newborn baby. And just everything got too overwhelming then. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I worked with a couple of guys in the firm who were like mentors to me in lots of different ways and have been unbelievably supportive at every stage of my career, both professionally and personally. I'm one of those guys who suggested that; that's my view and my take, but I would strongly suggest you try and move your body around a bit. I think that will help you to just kind of get over some of the overwhelming elements of life. And that was how he introduced me to Matt and so on. So you and I started talking then and started working, and then it's a very different time from what happened. And we can talk about that. But yeah, that was how we first met.
Matt Dixon 22:16
Let's go because we've had two chapters with each other. And, you know, the second one obviously being much more successful for you and us as a partnership in a way, and I remember a couple of things of the sort of first time first time around, and there was just a little bit of a gap between, but I'm just sort of separating it into chapters for our conversation here. Do you go back? I remember making a few recommendations around a challenge, a goal, or doing something with—do you remember our conversations there? And I want you to try and go back, and from a coaching standpoint, have you struggled to get traction? In many ways, you just weren't quite ready. That was my coaching perspective. I'd love to hear your recollection of that first chapter and what you remember of it.
Ben Cooper 23:15
Yeah. That's exactly what I mean. There were things that I felt kind of capable of doing at the time, you know, sort of start with a road run a little bit, would kind of start to get on the exercise bike and have a little program to just move the body and kind of turn the engine over a little, turn the engine over, see I pull up all the trademark (inaudible). So, I would kind of keep keeping everything rolling. But there were things at the time that I just felt too overwhelmed by to be able to move forward. Really, and you know, you suggested I remember, I remember vividly your point about the challenge. I remember you saying to me, Yeah, I can talk for hours about this, and I'll try not to, but I love nature. I love being in nature, which is harder. I think where I live is better than where you live. So get out and do it. I remember you saying to me, Hey, maybe you should think about doing a kind of trek or a trip, or you should get in a canoe with some buddies and go down a river, and I remember thinking I can't do that; I just can't. I will never be able to take on a challenge like that. And that was my mindset at the time. I felt that I just felt like I was. I think just having been in a period where life felt about survival basically, you know about life at the time, particularly when we were back in intensive care in that period, just after you know my wife was that amazing. She's an amazing woman and an incredibly, mentally robust and brilliant woman in loads of different ways. She was focused on what it took to be a mom then, and, you know, for anyone who's had a premature baby, I think the physiological reaction that women have at that moment and milk coming in at a difficult time. It was just an incredibly difficult experience, and she was so focused on that. And I felt like my job at the time was just to survive. I thought all I had to do then was survive. And that made me mentally so depleted. And that never -- I couldn't get rid of that, I couldn't drop that from I couldn't drop that, from my mind that I just felt completely incapable at that point of, I was, I could hear you say it. And I felt like it sounded like a great idea for someone else, just not for me, you know? And that was difficult.
Matt Dixon 25:33
How can you gain an edge? How can your team gain an edge, show up daily, be ready to perform, and develop the mindset of a champion? How do you develop the mechanisms in an organization that's going to drive a performance culture across the whole team? I never set out to be an executive coach. What I wanted to do was coach world champions, and I was lucky enough to do that. But after 20 years of working with world-class athletes and industry-leading C-suite executives, I've learned some key practical approaches that drive sustained high performance, both individually and across teams. And now I'm ready to talk about it. If you'd like to learn more about my keynote speaking or our leadership programs at Purple Patch, which are all specifically designed to help teams drive better results, feel free to reach out directly at info@PurplePatchfitness.com. It's very simple: three key steps: review the offerings and set up a call with me directly to understand your goals and challenges. And we can get cracking on engagements that are synchronized to your corporate calendar and, of course, tailored to the needs of your team. info@PurplePatchfitness.com. All right, enjoy the rest of the show.
Matt Dixon 26:45
So you went away, and then you returned, and you've just had a couple of months sort of break. And he came back. And it felt like the very first conversation we had, like, of course, a coach, I have to decide, okay, am I going to invest back sort of thing, it was a very different Ben on the first call back. And you came back, and you had a shift in perspective. And maybe that was just time. But I'd love for you to go back to the start of chapter two. And you came to me actually with a goal, which was a goal that was surprising to me. He said I want to do a marathon. So go back to the start of that.
Ben Cooper 27:28
Yeah, so I get, you know, I sound like I've drank Kool-Aid in terms of the people I work with. And you know, they know who they are; you know who they are. But, in conjunction with the guys, I took a little bit of time off. I took a couple of months off work to look after myself, but I just stayed at home as a dad. For a few months, all I was was a dad, and I allowed my wife to kind of go back to work. And she could get some separation, I think, from being at home, which was good for her in lots of ways. You know, it was important for her to also get a bit of her life back. And I just was, I was just at home and my little boy every day, all I did was be a dad I went to. I'd love to call them parent and child groups; they were moms and baby groups were going back to my physiology, this sort of lumbering, you know, 230 pounds, six-foot-four dad lumbering around with carrying a tiny baby through these sort of bouncy castles and ball pits and stuff. And I loved every single second of it. And I think the most important thing, again, going back to the psychological side, was that it just allowed me to see that my son was well and safe, was here, and was a real person. And I could kind of trust that I could focus a bit more on myself, again, actually coming off the back of that, and I could try and put some stuff in place. But it also gave me the sense that proximity also gives us hints, like I think I've got to do something a little bit differently. I don't want to go; I don't want to go back here. I'm going to try and put some foundations in place so that this doesn't happen again. And as I was sort of ruminating on that, and you know, anyone, anyone who's been a parent, you know, plenty of time in the middle of the night to think about things is watching a child fall asleep on top of me. I remember sitting and thinking about the stuff Matt talked about; maybe I could do that. You know, maybe I could do something. Maybe I could do it in my mind, maybe I could run a 10k, or maybe I could, you know, do a trip with some of my friends. Maybe I could do something that would be kind of physically demanding. And as you serendipitously said, this time we're in intensive care. There was an amazing charity, the British Charity, that provides materials for parents whose children are premature or who have birth difficulties and are staying in intensive care, This charity provides brilliant information to explain What's going to happen, but also like little packs of things that, you know, like a little blanket for your baby that's safe for them, even if they're going to be in an incubator, this kind of stuff. And it meant the world to us at the time, particularly because, you know, none of his grandparents could come in and see him; there was nothing like that that could happen. And they sent an email out saying, Oh, we got places for the London Marathon, we've got places, charity places, London Marathon, you gotta raise a bit of money. But if you want to do it, there's a place. Yeah, yeah, I could do a marathon. I could do a marathon. So I decided to go for it. And I thought, well if I'm going to do a marathon, I'm going to need some help. And that was when I picked up the phone. So I decided to not only go back and do a challenge but do a proper challenge. I believe that a marathon is an appropriate challenge. So I decided to give it a go and knuckle down. But I'll be clear, and when I guess we'll talk about this, I thought I would hate it. I was just full. I'm doing this for my kids. I'm doing this to raise money for charity. I'm doing this because it's something that will focus me on something, but I will not enjoy it. There was no way I would enjoy doing this, was my mindset going into it.
Matt Dixon 31:11
You're -- I'm not built for this. I am the ultimate donkey dipped in cement. So let's go to sort of some of the granular stuff, training habits, around that side of stuff, et cetera. So from your perspective, I'd love to go back because you probably had in mind that this is what it's going to take; I'm going to have to do a whole bunch of running, and a whole bunch of really long running, et cetera. So go back and think about training and sort of how we tackled it from your lens.
Matt Dixon 31:45
Yeah, completely. And I mean, it was an absolute sort of transformational journey in that respect, right? Because I've worked in this, and particularly for anyone who's listening and thinking about doing an endurance sport, if you go online and google that endurance sport and what it takes to do an Ironman or triathlon, whatever, it'll just be tons of miles of that thing over six months, there's no nuance or sophistication to it; there are some but the majority, not none at all. And that was one of the best things for me. The best thing was that I think we started early enough, from memory, so we started in, like, September or June. Basically, around the summer to run in April. So I had to put in kind of eight months of training time. And that allowed me to build up slowly. And you gave me an interesting program at the start. So I was focused on a combination of runs, which made loads of sense from the sport that I've done and the rugby that I've done. So there were things that were sprints, there were things that were intervals, there were the hills, there were completely different volumes, there were long runs to get familiar with the longer territory, but it wasn't all about running, loads of swimming to keep off to keep off the joints and to build up, rowing, I've got the erg in the basement, so the House of Pain downstairs. So we can do that. And on the exercise bike as well. So really trying to combine all of those things gave me loads of variety. So it's the variety that I wasn't expecting; I was expecting to get bored of running, which I didn't. I love the runs; they were my favorite part. But it also just gave me a completely different way of thinking about the exercise and kept me mentally stimulated by the different types of training that I was doing. But (inaudible) I'm here as well. So it's unsurprising that I'm completely committed to the fact that if you're trying to do something different, you need a coach to support you in doing that. So not only were you able to give me a varied program, but I think, particularly as a relatively time-starved person, the ability to say, Hey, Matt, this is my weakest week; I've got a crazy week; I'm going to go; I'm flying to this city on Tuesday; I'll be away Wednesday; I'm back on Thursday evening; but I have a thing to do with my son. Great, okay, well, I'm going to do 20 minutes this morning, then that evening, you'll be doing some stretching in the evening, you're going to do a longer run that morning, working with you to work out, like, what hotels have different-sized pools? How can I exercise in different ways? Where's it going to be, hills? We have loads of investments in flat countries, seemingly. So how do we get a different volume? And that makes such a huge difference? Because I think and again, I think it probably comes back to all the stuff that I talked about earlier on if you -- sometimes when things are difficult, it takes enough just to start, right? It takes a bit of willpower Just to start, it takes a bit of effort to put one foot in front of the other. And I think if I'd had the easy opt-out—I don't have quite the right kit or I don't know what I should be doing—I probably would have taken it at some point. And I think that that combination of support and probably a little bit of peer pressure as well was a good thing for me.
Matt Dixon 34:59
I think it's valuable. I mean, you talked about your mentors in the business inside. But there's also that there's, you know, this was public; this isn't something that you were hiding in the closet sort of thing; you were doing this and everyone kind of knew you were doing it. And there's real positivity, and there's a little bit of accountability there. I also remember the plasticity of the program where this week I'm in -- and just associate, okay, I'm going to be in Amsterdam. Well, great. There's a really good park in Amsterdam, so we're going to run there. Well, next week I'm in Geneva. Well, we've got access to a pool, so we're going to leverage that. So also have the plasticity in the program not to try and force training into a life where it's like, hang on, you know, I don't have easy access to a pool in Amsterdam. Yeah, but it's the swim. It was the reverse engineer: what do we do this week, based on where I'm at, to keep us going in this direction?
Ben Cooper 35:55
Yeah. And, again, I'd add, I think that that's, for me, one of the real benefits of having the coach and the structure around it. I think that if you have a very rigid program that is based on an online thing or something like that, it just feels pass-fail. You know, I was supposed to do a 10-mile run that day. And if I don't do a 10-mile run, I haven't done enough. Whereas I can mostly be like, Hey, I know I'm not going to get this in. Okay, that's fine. But do this because it'll be valuable. And then we'll put that into the weekend. It just gives me loads of different ways of thinking about what I have to get done as an athlete and trying to find different options in coordination with that.
Matt Dixon 36:34
Another reason for me as a coach was that I was trying to get you ready for a marathon. I was also looking to really stabilize your energy and ultimately enhance your mental health, you know, albeit sort of indirectly. So I had some pretty heavy interventions. You're going to call it that around how you're eating, organizing your week, some of the organized side. I'd love you to talk about that sort of thing. I'm going to frame it under habits as it were. Because we shifted quite a bit around on that side of stuff,
Ben Cooper 37:08
Completely, I think it's so the habit forming for me was super (inaudible); it's something you really emphasized early on in the program was just that you've got to, you've got to show up to this. And you don't have to necessarily, as, going back to it, you don't have to show up for exactly the exercise I've programmed every day. That's not what this is. But you have to commit to this being a kind of overall thing that you want to do. And I think that if I went back to when I was training, I was a teenager playing a good standard sport like I trained six days a week. But I knew what I was going to do. And I was committed to it. And I sit down with my mom on a Sunday evening; we're like, well, I've got rugby training on Monday evening, and then Tuesday morning, I'm going to go in early because I want to make sure I'm doing some running, and then I'll do some stretching afterward. And I thought about that. And I think, particularly when you've got that combination of a demanding job, you know, my work calendar is pretty well set well in advance, and you then layer on top of that family, you know, as you well know, Matt, like toddlers, they don't work to your schedule at all. So it's trying to then look at that and think, How am I going to get the things that I need to do done in that time? And I think there's the sort of Sunday-special-type approach that we talked about: sitting down. You know, sit down and prioritize the things that you need on a Sunday. Workout, you know, work out. If you're going to do it, you're going to run on Monday, Tuesday, or Friday. This is what that looks like. These are the things that you need to bring with you. This is the equipment that you need to take; this is how you're going to think about exercise this week. And that was for me; it was the first step. And then that also allowed me to start thinking about diet and to start thinking about sleep and sleeping a really big one; actually, I'd say almost sleeping is more important in the first phase than (inaudible). I think that that was such a pillar for me to exercise to the right level, and as a family, my wife and I've completely changed our relationship with sleep for the better. And we've done that by having a young kid as well, right? So we've been prioritizing getting to bed early, turning lights off, and not having screens in the bedroom. Like all this sort of stuff that we've talked about, that made a huge difference. And I think I'm in everything in life; I am so convinced by the power of momentum and the virtuous circle effect, right? And so focusing on the exercise I was going to do—man, I needed to focus on the sleep I was going to do—made it logical that I would then focus on the diet and work there. I mean, you know, I'm 10 kg, 15, kg, and 20 kg, probably nearly 20 kg lighter than I was. So what's that? 50 pounds.
Matt Dixon 39:45
50 pounds lighter than when we started two years ago; it was never a goal, by the way; that was a knock-on effect; we'd never talked about weight loss.
Ben Cooper 39:53
And to be frank, I've done it, eating more than I did before, right? Because you've been very clear about the need to have more protein and to focus on that, which, as a non-meat eater, is harder to do, you're kind of focused on that sort of thing. So I've never been in a position where I'm eating where I'm not eating and being restrictive. But I have been much more mindful about what I'm eating when I'm eating, and then how I'm allocating the meals that I'm having to the exercise I'm doing. So I'm making sure that if I go and do a long run, I'm prepared for that. And again, my wife and I were laughing the other day, and she's doing the same thing, to be clear. So she's super fit and working hard on that. But like, I've had to go away this week, and I'm packing my creatine capsules, my magnesium for recovery, and my protein shakes. But that's what's going to encourage me to do it; it takes me two minutes to do it. Otherwise, I would either not exercise or I'd exercise, and I'd be grouchy when I got to the office because I hadn't eaten properly and hadn't had enough protein. So it makes a huge difference in my ability to achieve those things. And then to perform in different contexts—to perform in a work context and a professional context.
Matt Dixon 41:05
Yeah, I think one thing is that I just want to shine a light, and then we're going to talk about the impact of all of this ultimately, but one thing he mentioned that I think is really important is that no one can change everything at once. And your journey, the reason that I think that you have been so successful, or one of the big reasons beyond your commitment beyond your saying, Okay, I've gone all in, is that you did one thing, which got going with the exercise, and then we layered on the sleep, and it was—it opened it up in a sequential sort of natural sort of enmeshed way that, then a couple of years later, you look back and go, Wow, my habits have changed. And it wasn't this; you know, I couldn't come in as a coach and say, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all of this needs to change; let's turn all the dials up at once. Because no one can take that on, particularly when you're time-starved. And it seemed like that was done well by you there.
Ben Cooper 42:09
Yeah, no, I mean it, but I suppose I mean that that's part of you. And when we first spoke, you started using the phrase, and I thought it was clear: I think this guy's been in California for way too long because he's talking about coaching relationships, right? And that was the terminology that you used around it. And, initially, I was like, That's just a different word. That's a different word. But actually, proper coaching is a relationship, right? It's understood that if you just drop me a load of red lines, I'm going to feel boxed in, and I'm probably not going to do it. And I'm probably not going to commit to it the same way. But if we can layer one thing on top of the other, it just allows things to improve one after the other. And I think that the part that has made the biggest difference is that it allows you to build in a much more structured way. And it also means that habits stick. I mean Nothing's worse than suddenly everyone who's ever tried to crash diet or try to exercise off the back of nothing doesn't stick; you can't do it. It doesn't; you have to build incrementally. And I think that's doubly the case where you're pretty time-starved. If you're trying to do all of this in the context of busy work, you are right. If you don't eat enough and you don't eat in the right way after you exercise, you're grouchy in the office, your colleagues get frustrated, you aren't productive, and you can't do a full day's work. Trying to combine all those things, I think, has been important.
Matt Dixon 43:27
I do want to make it clear: I have been in California for a long time, and I am very Americanized, but the Essex will never wash off me. I am still a proud Essex boy, despite all of the stereotypes. I've got a gold chain under here, Ben.
Matt Dixon 43:42
I feel so fortunate to coach Ben. And I think that's a common sentiment across the whole of the Purple Patch coaching team toward all of their athletes or at least most of them. And I notice how the impact of the coaching journey always extends well beyond finish times and places. You get that out of Ben's discussion. And for me, this is what it means to be a Purple Patch-coached athlete. Partner, go on a journey, and integrate training that works with your demands of life. Cut through the noise and confusion to focus on the key elements that are going to help you perform and be guided through a process ultimately, just like Ben, of transformation, instead of just trying to do it all at once and falling into a cycle of failure. If you're interested in their coaching services, I think it's a wonderful time to reach out. I also believe that it's probably the best investment that you can make in yourself. And for those around you: Three simple steps Reach out to us at info@purplepatchfitness.com. We'll set up a complimentary call to understand your situation's goals and challenges. And then we will pair you with the right coach for you and your needs, with the full backing of myself and the whole Purple Patch team at your back. The journey of transformation begins at info@purplepatchfitness.com. Okay, now let's get back with Ben and enjoy the last part of the show.
Matt Dixon 45:10
Let us now move on to the impact. And I'm going to break, break the sort of see your now three marathons in, you've just finished, you just finished your third, and you went under four hours, which of course is the fastest American runner to run 2:04, but your sub-four hour marathon is a great personal achievement. And when we started this journey, both of us would have said no way. And but it's not about that, you know, it's not about the time, and so what I'd love to do is, from your lens, what's the impact of this journey and what's the outcome, and you can talk about sport; you can also talk about broader life and how it's impacted you professionally, and in whatever order you want to go in. That's up to you.
Ben Cooper, 46:12
Yeah, so I was. Alright, let's go; let's put up; let's start on the sports side. So you have three marathons in 12 months; having never run a race before, I've gone under four hours, which is a lot less impressive than many, but for me, it was an amazing milestone. And I'm going fast on that. We're going to talk about that.
Matt Dixon 46:32
We are going faster.
Ben Cooper, 46:33
We are going faster; I can do that. So I'm excited about all the things that it takes to do that, and I can see the incremental performance improvement. The great thing—one of the cool things—is that I think being able to do some of that kind of reminded me of a certain phrase that I use with my son. When he's when my son can't do something, it might say he's trying to learn to do something. I say, You can do this, you can do hard things like it's okay, you'll fail, and you'll keep trying. And this whole process reminded me that I could do hard things. And I could do hard things because I wanted to do them; I could do them on my agenda. This was a thing I wanted to do. And I think in lots of ways that, as someone who had been quite a good athlete as a kid, something like a spark of something that I'd lost for years and years came back and has given me; it's given me more confidence in myself, it's given me the ability to understand myself, and then the nature of endurance sport. I never, ever thought I would—I was that guy. If there's no ball, it's not a sport. And, you know, I still love my football a lot even though Chelsea is bad this year, but I -- you know, it's endurance sport has allowed me to do something that I never thought I'd be able to do, which was engage physically in a way that is completely profound mentally. It's a meditative thing. It allows me to go to a place with such hardness and difficulty that I think it is hard to access. And both of those things combined just give me this extra level of resilience in my day-to-day life. So I think it's helped me to have a better sense of the priorities that I have in life; it's allowed me to have a better sense of my mental resilience; it's reminded me that I can do things on my agenda. And on my terms, in ways that I didn't, I didn't think I was able to for a long time. And that part has been one of the most amazing things. I hadn't imagined that it would have such a transformative effect in that respect.
Matt Dixon, 48:49
You started talking about sport, and you immediately went to, we think about it as the physical you immediately went to the mentor, and the traits and mindset side of stuff. And the direct connection between this journey that you took on for yourself and how it's impacted you professionally is great. And I'm assuming the sort of staying power on day-to-day you've got better energy in the day and better resilience.
Ben Cooper 49:23
I've got way better energy. I've got so much more energy from my day-to-day life. I've got a better ability to focus. I'm, um, I get up easier in the mornings, not least to exercise all of those small things. You add them together, and that's such a change in your day-to-day and I think that's been a hugely transformative experience for me. I also say I think this is kind of training my brain to think differently. Exercise has made me more adaptable; it may be more resilient, as I said, but I genuinely think it's made me a better employee. It's made me way better, father. You know, I talked about, you know, going to be open about the sort of mental health stuff earlier on. Like I said to my therapist the other day, exercise has sort of sandpapered off some of the rough edges every day. And that's really how it feels. And that's how my wife would describe it as well. Just it, it just helps to make every day easier. I was going to say it was because it makes every day easier. That implies that every day wasn't good. It just makes things better. I'm just a happier, more engaged person for doing this. Yeah, it's it's it's super profound. I'm fully all in, as you know, but, like, it's an amazing, amazing thing. I think. I know that one thing we talked about. So I mentioned I've done three marathons in 12 months, right? So London starts in Paris at the end. In the middle.
Matt Dixon 49:53
My favorite one you've done, by the way, before I was just about to ask you about this. So I'm glad you're bringing it up because of the fantastic marathon. Yeah.
Ben Cooper 51:10
So, somewhere in the middle of the two. So in November of last year, I went with some friends and ran a wine marathon, basically for lack of a better word. So it was in Beaujolais; there are a few of them in France and various other places. But you run from vineyard to vineyard. So in 20 different vineyards, you run literally through the cellars, underneath the castles, and they serve wine. So there are 16 to 19 wine stops, which I would not recommend doing all of them, a thimble full of wine, but they mount up over the day. And incredibly, I ran that in like 4:40, which I was quite surprised about, considering we were stopping drinking wine every couple of kilometers. But the reason I mentioned that is that, to me, that's almost, in some ways, a better example of the journey that I've been on. Because this was a physical thing that I went away for the weekend, I went away, you know, without my family, which I wouldn't have felt able to do before. I wouldn't have prioritized doing that; I would have wanted to be at home and be with my family and be engaged. Without realizing that. Yeah, if you don't enjoy yourself and you don't take time for yourself, yeah, you got to put your oxygen mask on before you help others, right, and all that kind of thing. So you need to do that. Doing a physical thing, you know, to your point of doing a challenge. If you want to go on a trip with a few buddies, this is a full marathon running four and a half hours with a couple of my best friends. You know, drinking a nice glass of wine now and then. And some pretty bad ones too. They don't give the best stuff out for the marathons. But the amazing thing is that it just felt like an amazing demonstration of making exercise part of my life, and the journey that we went on as a group that day was so evocative. I was quite tearful, coming over them to the line arm in arm with one of my best buddies about something that I two years ago would have thought was impossible for me to even consider doing, let alone actually go and do, and stand there and do it with friends and sort of see that journey was an incredibly profound moment.
Matt Dixon 53:10
It's magic. You know, it highlights the two things you started when we first started talking about marathons. In this conversation, you said I thought I was going to hate it, and when we think about training for a marathon, an Ironman, or a 5K, everything, it's a solo pursuit. What's coming out for me is that number one, it's been anything but solo. You know, you've got your buddies and partners at work, you've got your buddies, you've got your family involved, or you're coaching relationships, etc. But it's really sort of going beyond you. And number two, it sounds like you're having fun. You're enjoying it.
Ben Cooper 53:58
I love it. You know that when you think you can, you can, you know, overcomplicate everything in life, right? But I think there is something just incredibly powerful about just placing one step in front of the other, not having any headphones on, just being out and seeing what the world is going to give you that day and what your body is ready for it, and I go out, and the positivity that brings to me is amazing. I just love doing it. I just love getting out and doing this. I think I love running. I love it. I put a load of miles on my legs last year. I'll do the same this year. I'll do it with my buddies. You know, I know Sunday this weekend I'm going to just run to some friend’s house to go and have lunch with them. And it's great. And as you say, I think that was one of the things that was always on my mind. In a professional context, I see myself as a real team player, and I want to engage with people—the people around me. All the sports I played were team sports, and it was all about the kind of collective victory, I think. In my mind, I'd kind of bracketed running as a thing that's very solo and very solitary. And the community that's come about from that, and the community that sits within endurance sports, is incredible. And so genuinely, some of the happiest moments of my life—honestly, I mean, other than marriage, kids, and a couple of other bits and pieces. So yeah, doing some of those things. It's particularly London doing London kind of getting on us getting going through that journey. That was the one that really -- London closed the door on all this on a lot of the stuff that had happened, that caused me to be so burnt out. And then since then, it's been more; the longer-term athletic journey has been kind of the new, the new bit we've been on. So, I guess, those are maybe my two chapters of what we've done. And I remember you when you said to me that I remember you called me the night before the marathon before I left for the marathon, and one of the things you said was, yeah, just remember that today, you won by getting on the start line. And that's actually what it's about when it comes down to it. When it comes down to exercise, you win by getting on the starting line; you win by just getting it, doing it, and putting one step in front of the other. And if you turn up and do that with consistency, irrespective of what you're doing, you don't have to have a time goal; it doesn't matter. But that commitment to the thing that you want to do and doing it for yourself is transformative, I think.
Matt Dixon 56:37
You are the beacon, the best example I can think of, of the power of sport, well-being, and all the associated habits, taking on a challenge, and how it impacts broader life. And I just want to say, fantastic. So far, you haven't messed it up. You're an immeasurable disappointment in many areas, but not in this. But no, thank you so much for your transparency, Ben, and thanks for being a part of Purple Patch.
Ben Cooper, 57:09
Thanks. Thanks to you a lot, Matt, as well, because I wouldn't be here without a coach. And yeah, so the guys—the guys who have mentored me and suggested I get in touch with you—I owe them a heck of a lot too. So that journey that you and I've been on has been amazing. And thank you for so much that you've done for me as a person. So, and long may it continue.
Matt Dixon 57:31
Long may it continue because the finish line of Paris is never the finish line of the journey. That's the important thing. So, Ben, thank you very much for being on the show. I appreciate it.
Ben Cooper, 57:42
Thanks very much.
Matt Dixon 57:44
Take care.
Matt Dixon 57:45
Guys. Thanks so much for joining. 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 could subscribe; of course, I'd like to ask you if you will subscribe and share it with your friends. And it's really helpful if you leave a nice positive review in the comments. Now, if you have any questions, let me know. Feel free to add a comment, and I will try my best to respond and support you on your performance journey. And, 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
coach, exercise, marathon, journey, talk, run, ben, felt, training, patch, team, purple, starved, focus, sport, day, thought, endurance sport, performance