Episode 336: Reflection - Part 1
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Jesse Thomas
Welcome to the Purple Patch Podcast!
In this episode, we’re discussing what it takes to perform at your best—not just in the moment but over the long term. Today’s topic is one that is often overlooked yet absolutely essential for sustained high performance: reflection. Whether you're an athlete aiming for an IRONMAN podium or a business leader managing high-stakes projects, reflection is a crucial component of the high-performance machine. It connects important traits such as adaptability, coachability, resilience, and the ability to prioritize what drives results. You might be working hard, but without reflection, you’re not necessarily working smart or focusing your efforts where they will drive you toward your goals.
IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon discusses the importance of reflection in achieving sustained high performance in both athletics and business. He emphasizes that reflection helps identify what works and what doesn't, ensuring continuous improvement rather than just short-term success. Dixon uses the example of Jesse Thomas, an athlete who won six consecutive Wildflower Triathlons but sometimes performed poorly despite winning. He also shares a business case where an executive's project failed, but reflection helped identify areas for improvement. Dixon concludes that reflection is crucial for adaptability, resilience, and long-term growth, urging listeners to incorporate it into their routines.
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Jesse Thomas
Episode Timestamps
00:00-3:20 Episode Introduction
3:30-5:39 Reflection Framework
5:39-13:01 Jesse Thomas Story
13:01-18:29 Business Story
18:36-21:20 Poker Story
21:26-27:50 Reflection Application
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Full Transcript
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.
00:29
And welcome to the purple patch podcast as ever, your host, Matt Dixon, we have another episode on what it takes to perform at your best, not just for the moment, but over the long term, and today we're talking about something that is, I think, often overlooked, but absolutely essential for sustained high performance. The topic of today is reflection. Now whether you're an athlete chasing an Ironman podium or a business leader navigating high stakes projects, reflection is a critical cog in the high performance machine. It's a tool that connects traits like adaptability, Coach ability, resilience and the ability to prioritize what drives results. You might be working hard, but without reflection, you're not necessarily working smart and placing your efforts in the aspects that are going to drive you in the direction you want to go. So what will you learn today? In today's show? Well, it's all about reflection. It sets the stage for long term growth no matter what your performance arena is. This is all encompassing for athletes, business professionals and anyone that cares about improving their sustained high performance. And it's all wrapped up into three main lessons. Number one is that reflection is a hidden key in the journey towards sustained high performance. It ensures that your efforts lead to improvement, not just short term wins. The second component that we are a pound pack is that reflection is your great course corrector. In other words, it's how you identify what's working what's not working, and where you should apply your focus to improve continually. And finally, we're going to dig into how resilience improves and builds on your resilience. We all know that is a high performance characteristic. It enables you to embrace both wins and losses as learning opportunities, allowing you to stay motivated and, of course, adaptable over time. So those are the three main things that we're going to dig into before we get going on the meat and potatoes as ever, a quick highlight and a note personally from me to you, and that's the fact that we bring you today's show, ad free, promo free. And so if you're interested in continuing the conversation, if you have any questions at all around today's topic, or, of course, broader performance, feel free to reach out to us info@purplepatchfitness.com We'll be happy to answer your questions over email. Or, of course, set up a complimentary consultation with myself or one of the team. Also. All of our programming is found at purplepatchfitness.com so if you want to dig into more around the topic today, or anything that we can help you at purple patch along your performance journey, please don't hesitate to reach out. We love hearing from you. We enjoy your questions, and we try and mold those questions into future episodes so that we can continue our education. But with that, it is time with the hand of my producer, Barry, to let you know it's time for the meat and potatoes.
03:31
All right, let's kick it off with part one, and I'm going to label this the outcome trap. What I mean by that is that winning is not always high performance,
03:44
so this particularly resonates for me with athletes, but it can extend to any arena. Just because you win, it doesn't mean you're high performing. What I want to do is frame reflection in a high performance mindset at purple patch, we often discuss the elements that make up that high performance mindset. And it's traits like being coachable, and that includes the ability to communicate really effectively, to provide and receive feedback, to think about collaboration, etc. We also dig into resilience, both physical resilience, but also mental resiliency, to keep going when the when things get really tough, the need to be changeable or adaptable is the more common word, and relentlessly focused on controlling the controllables, all of these other traits that we come in and we discuss these. We've had all episodes on these, and they're absolutely foundational, but in my belief, one of the high performance traits that's often overlooked is reflection. And I think that in many ways, reflection is one of the linchpins that really ties all of these traits together. And yet, I see so many folks that are very committed.
05:00
Very tough and ambitious towards improving either their athletic performance or their performance in business, whatever it might be, and really failing to come out of the weeds, get the perspective and look back so that they can ensure that they're driving forward. And so reflection is one of those things that really helps us fall into what I labeled the outcome trap, where results deceive you into thinking that you're performing at your best, even when actually you're not. Let me give you an example of this. I'm going to tell you a story of an athlete that I coach that won, and as you're going to hear, won yet again. But in my mind, as a coach, didn't perform, and this is important now, this is one of my favorite athletes I ever got to coach purple patch, pro Jesse Thomas, and he was a wonderful athlete. He was incredibly smart, driven, athletically, very gifted. And he was also one of the athletes that had the highest, what I label athletic IQs that I'd ever coached. In other words, he was very, very smart with his decision making, his self management, his execution of races, etc, and he won a lot of races over the course of his decade long professional career. But he was probably best known within the world of triathlon of his amazing run of six victories in a row at the famed and historic wildflower triathlon, which takes place in California. And this is one of the sort of iconic races of the sport. And Jesse won it six times in a row, more than any other athlete had. It's pretty amazing. It's a wonderful accomplishment. But as his coach, I didn't view every one of those wins. Yes, he crossed the finish line first, but I didn't view every single one of them as high performance. Now, there was one year in particular where Jesse, as always, arrived absolutely ready. He had a solid game plan. He trained really well. He knew his pacing and his strategy. He understood how to execute his nutrition, fueling, etc. And yet, and I don't actually, honestly remember whether it was third or fourth victory, so let's go with third. But I think it was his third time that he won, I believe that he won despite himself. Over the course of that race, his pacing was pretty erratic. He missed aspects of his plan for nutrition. He didn't make the best strategic decisions over the course of the day, and yet, pretty much by some stroke of luck, because his competition also didn't really have their best performances. He won. In fact, with just two miles to go, Jesse sat in third place, and somehow he passed those two athletes in front of them in the final stretch of the race. And the truth is that it was really less to do with some heroic, great effort by Jesse, and more to do with the fact that his competition was faulting.
08:08
So who cares? He won? Right? Isn't that all that matters? The reflection trap. You see. Here's the problem, Jesse didn't execute the plan. He failed to do the things under His control to the best of his ability. He got the win. But did he perform at his best? And the answer to that is no.
08:36
And the danger here is that without reflection, our topic of the day, Jesse could easily just walk away drunk on joy because of the result, but blind to the areas that he actually needed to improve for further long term development. And I think this is one of the catalysts where we often see performances stagnating because you don't reflect, therefore you don't grow
09:02
the reason this race really stays stuck in my mind is because I happened to be on site at this race, so I got to watch it live. And then in days following, when we came home and we unpacked the race, I was Jesse's harshest critic. In fact, it was probably the strongest that I was with Jesse, probably the most harsh I was over the course of all of his performances and over a decade of coaching, despite the fact that he'd won, I labeled the race a failure, a personal failure, and that was simply because he failed to do the things under His control to the best of his ability, he didn't execute.
09:44
I labeled his race a failure despite the fact that he won, and the reason for that is because failure, for us, was not executing the things under His control to the best of his ability. So therefore that's what it was determined as, to his credit, Jesse was right there with me, because Jesse, as an athlete, was a master of reflection, and he knew that as soon as he allowed a little complacency to creep in, it was likely going to be the start of corrosion of performance and in reflection, he realized that complacency had crept in on this race.
10:28
Now there's research that backs this up. In fact, there's a great research article in the Journal of Applied sports psychology that found that athletes who consistently reflect on their performances whether they win or lose, and that's an important part. Win or lose, it's easy to reflect when you lose what went wrong, but actually what went right on the victory. Athletes that actually reflect on their performances demonstrate significantly better long term development compared to those that just rely solely on outcomes as a measure of success. In other words, the process of assessing your performance, not the outcome, is the thing that is the fuel that drives sustainable growth and improvements. And that's a really component, really important component and concept to buy into. Jesse, our hero of our story, was the master in this trait, and therefore he was a driver of much of his success that he enjoyed over a decade of ongoing improvements, and of course, race results that emerged out of that. Now Jesse Thomas, he was a master of reflection, as I pointed out, and I think it was the driver of much of his success over the 10 years that he raced as a professional, but he didn't just wait to reflect at the end of a season or the end of a race. In fact, he would do it weekly, sometimes daily, and he'd always ask himself the same questions, what did I do? Well, where can I improve? And what should I focus on now, going forward? And so the key lesson out of this is that winning
12:04
or success, so far as outcomes, doesn't always mean you perform well, and reflection is a really critical tool for you that forces us to look back At our execution and start to draw lessons. What can I build on? What did I do really well here, what was successful and why,
12:28
but equally, where did I fall short? Not to punish yourself or create some form of blame, but actually to elicit opportunities for growth. And without it, a win can lure you into complacency, and those same mistakes are more than likely going to haunt you in future races or events, a key component around reflection. So let's dig into part two, and let's talk about a failure to reflect in business. So let's give us we talked about athletics. Let's think about business. And I'll give you a little bit of a story here, because the concept that we're talking about here doesn't just apply in sport. So let's highlight a real life example in a business setting, and I'm going to talk about a another athlete of mine that did absolutely everything right, but quote failed. So let's step into the business world and talk about it. I was recently having a coaching discussion with an executive athlete of mine, a client that I have worked with for quite some years. We won't name names. In fact, let's just call him John. It is a male and John was a lead on a major project within his organization, and he is absolutely tough. He's committed, relentlessly focused, and there's no doubt that John controls what he can and he has a team with him that is a line the strategy was absolutely on point in this project, and he executed everything to the very best of his ability,
14:07
but the project fell flat, and it was probably due to various aspects. There was a shift in market forces. Some of the organizations that you could label competition were getting ahead, but ultimately the end result was labeled a failure. When I was having this conversation with John, understanding how things were going globally, asking first about his sport, obviously his health, his energy and how everything was he was just weighed down, clearly And so John reflected on this story of just saying, I'm pretty deflated and doubt, you know, I put my heart and soul into this, and it wasn't the outcome that we wanted. We failed. Now I, as I'm talking to John, I can't begin to understand the details of his project, and I'm absolutely.
15:00
Be no expert in his industry, and so I can't provide any context or advice around things that he could have done differently from a business or strategic standpoint. But instead, what I could do is ask John very similar questions of what I might ask an athlete. So he was down, he was bummed, and the conversation steered into a different direction. We didn't talk about how his bike legs were, or whether it adheres to strength, or how his sleep was, or whether he was following through with the protocols of hydration that we were looking to build on at the time, it's nothing to do that. I just put on my coach's hat, and I asked John very simple questions. What I was developing is a reflection opportunity, basically. So I said, All right, just take your time and tell me what did you and what did your team do really well.
15:55
And then we asked him to identify what were the aspects of this whole project that was absolutely out of your control, that no matter how well you did things, what was out of your control? And he outlined a few components. Then I said, Let's look back. Where did you fall short? What were areas that if you got to do it again, you would do things differently, or perhaps you didn't execute as well as you planned to do, what were your blind spots? Identify areas that if you got to do a rerun, where could you grow and improve? So we went through the questions, and John was busy scribbling down notes, and at the end of the conversation, I told him to go away, and I just said, have a little digestion of all of this information. Have a look of all of the components. And while we have an outcome that was a failure,
16:47
what are the lessons from the experience that can emerge out of this for next time and we end up having a follow up call the very next day, because what he started to realize as he took time to reflect, is that while the outcome wasn't favorable for him, the process was not a failure. They did a whole bunch of stuff really, really well, and there were some things that were absolutely out of their control that went against them. And sometimes that can happen. You're not always going to get a tailwind, sometimes you're going to get a headwind. And there are also other opportunities that maybe they could build on to improve for subsequent projects. In other words, the reflection opportunity and asking very, very simple questions gave John some clarity on where he could as a team lead, pivot a little bit, adjust the strategy and where to focus his energy and the team's energy moving forward. And this is a part of what's that thing life. This is what occurs. Because on a performance journey, whether we're thinking about an athletic journey, whether we're thinking about business journey, we're not always going to get the outcomes that we need. And sometimes it is down to us not executing as intended, but other times, there are a whole bunch of aspects that are out of our control.
18:13
I heard a great story that really highlights this. I was told this the other day, and I decided to pull it into the show, because I think it's really nice and it is nothing to do with my expertise. I promise you, I know the rules. I don't play the game at least very well. It's all about poker. So we're not talking about triathlon or endurance sports. We're not talking about business. We're going to talk about poker quickly. But it's a great story about one of the great champions. I don't think they're the world champion, but one of the great players in poker, and it was a female I don't remember her name, to be honest, but they had were retelling a story in which they were saying that they were playing a specific hand in poker, and essentially, they looked at their cards, and they looked at the cards down on the table, and they realized that they had the Second best possible hand that you can get in poker. So therefore their chances of winning that hand were extremely high. And so therefore what they did is they bet accordingly and against all odds, they lost the hand, and that proved expensive and, of course, highly frustrating. So what was the result of that? They lost the hand, they lost a bunch of money. They didn't go further on in the tournament.
19:27
Well, the result was it didn't deter them. They didn't lose ambition. They didn't lose confidence in themselves, because in reflection, what they did is everything under their control. They did right and they bet well. They played well, but someone just happened to have a better hand, the one and only hand that can beat them. So therefore, the outcome was unfavorable. Their behaviors and their systems were absolutely.
20:00
Absolutely on point. So what occurred then is they move forward with a commitment to not change a thing.
20:08
They weren't going to suddenly be reckless reflection, realized that they shouldn't change a thing. Instead, they would double down again in the same situation. And what starts to emerge from a story like this is because of reflection. There's less of an emotional reaction. In fact, there's a driver of confidence and control. I did the right thing. All of the aspects under under my control were executed, right? And if I meet this situation again, I should do exactly the same thing again, and that's really important.
20:42
Now, lessons don't just emerge from sport or poker. It's a key reflection tool. The Harvard Business Review shows us that leaders who consistently reflect on their decision making processes develop greater self awareness, very similar to that poker player there. They also heighten improve their emotional intelligence, and both of these are critical to long term success. Reflective leaders are more adaptable, better at managing pressure, and more resilient when things go wrong, just like our poker player. And that's really key, because, like athletes, business leaders can't solely focus on outcomes. Reflection helps leaders understand how well they've controlled the controllable and what needs to shift next time.
21:33
And that's why I started the show saying this is how it's linked as a lynch pin to the aspects such as resiliency and adaptability, and in the face of adversity, they're able to retain control and perform under pressure.
21:49
Now make no mistake when I say this ultimately, sport and business ultimately, is driven by outcomes and results. In other words, we want success. We want victories. We want growth. That's what business success is. That is what sporting success is. But to drive long term success and better outcomes more victories, we mustn't get fooled into thinking victories are always meaning high performance, and through that very same lens, losses meaning personal failure.
22:29
If we
22:30
remove the personal side of it
22:34
and trust the process or process, as you might say,
22:39
then we're able to evolve, refine and develop our processes, but it only occurs if you commit to that high performance trait, reflection.
22:51
And so let's finish the show just digging back into those character traits. How does reflection elevate all of our traits?
23:00
Well, it is the gear that drives growth. We talk a lot, as we talked about before early in the show, about adaptability, resilience, being coachable, and these are critical, but I believe reflection is the component that makes it actionable. Let me break it down,
23:18
adaptability without reflection, looking back first. How do you know what to adapt to? Where do you know where to change? How do you course correct when things go wrong? Resilience by enabling yourself to reflect on your victories when things go really well equal to your losses. It helps you build mental toughness. It allows you to process experiences and turn setbacks into opportunities, just like we worked out with John coach. Ability coaches provide feedback, but they also provide a framework, and that framework facilitates a process of reflection that helps you learn from your actions and your execution and therefore adapt to better results. In other words, you need to reflect, to absorb the coaching education, apply the lessons and make the feedback stick that you're receiving and focusing on the right priorities. There's no doubt, reflection helps you separate the noise from what actually drives results, ensuring that you're placing your commitment, your toughness, your smarts or your talent into things that are going to drive your performance needle. So the four principles of reflection of high performance that I've seen affect equally effective for athletes and high performance across all arenas. It's very simple. Number one, pause. Take a step back the moment you finish your race, let it digest. And then when you have a little bit of space, come back and look back if you complete a project like we just did a purple patch, we finished a big Workshop.
25:00
Up, we give ourselves a few days, then we look back before we rush ahead. Give yourself space to evaluate what just happened effectively. And then in that reflection, part two is to review, strip away the emotion tied to the outcome,
25:21
whether you win, whether you lose, and instead, ask yourself critical questions, just like Jesse Thomas did, what did I do? Well, what did we do? Well, where did we fall short?
25:33
Without this, you're really missing the story to your performance, and then you go through to the course correction. Once you've identified what worked well and what didn't work well, then you have to adjust. What are some things that we need to change? How can we improve? What actions should you based? Should you take based on this clarity and you start to have a course correction on the track that you're currently on? Of course it might be we're doing great and double down, just like our poker player, but typically there's some form of improvements or refinements that are necessary, and then with all of that information, you filter it through, and you prioritize, where am I going to emphasize or apply my focus and actions moving forward, reflection isn't just about the past. It's about sharpening your focus for the future. Where will you prioritize in your training or your business strategy next time? Where are you going to give your energy, which ultimately is finite, where is it going to go based on what you've learned? And this is a hugely valuable component. This is reflection. We've covered a lot of ground today, and it all comes down to this very simply reflection is an essential cog in the high performance machine. The simple trait helps you elevate the traits like adaptability, resilience, coachability. And remember, it's not about the outcome, it's about what you learn from the process and then how you apply those lessons to get better every time, when you take this long term lens, it is the fuel that absolutely drives long term growth, And with that, it's important remember, performance, high performance, sustainable high performance. It's not a destination. It's a journey, and it is a journey that requires all of us continual learning and adjustment. So whether you're an athlete, a business professional, whatever is important to you, make reflection a regular part of your routine, and I promise you, it is one of the keys to unlocking that next level of sustainable high performance. I hope that helps. We'll see you next week. 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 of YouTube, and you will find it there. And you could 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. And in fact, 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, at purple patch fitness.com or leave it in the comments of the show at 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 really 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, doing whatever you do, take care.
Keywords
reflection importance, high performance, sustained growth, course correction, resilience building, outcome trap, adaptability, emotional intelligence, process focus, feedback integration, performance journey, long-term success, critical questions, course adjustment, prioritization