Episode 440: Navigating the Holidays

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IRONMAN Master Coach Matt Dixon discusses Purple Patch's Black Friday deal, offering a 50% discount on the first month of the Tri Squad program with a 30-day money-back guarantee. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining performance during the holidays while enjoying family time. Dixon advises prioritizing key work and training sessions, integrating them into daily life, and allowing flexibility in exercise modalities. He stresses the importance of not regressing, maintaining critical habits like hydration and sleep, and being creative with workouts. Dixon also highlights the need for a re-entry plan post-holidays to avoid stress and ensure a smooth transition back to regular routines.

In today’s podcast, listers can learn to establish a Sunday Special planning routine before and after the holidays to get organized. Ramp back into training and work gradually after the holidays, rather than trying to catch up. Build a "buffet" of flexible training options to do during the holidays based on available time and access. Matt Dixon sets the stage for the holiday guide, acknowledging the challenges of maintaining training consistency during the holidays. He aims to reduce anxiety and frustration by providing actionable strategies to balance training and holiday enjoyment. The guide is divided into three parts: mindset, planning, and actionable tips. Matt emphasizes the importance of embracing and enjoying the holidays while maintaining performance.

If you have any questions about the Purple Patch program, feel free to reach out at info@purplepatchfitness.com.


Episode Timestamps

00-2:42 Black Friday Deal

2:42-3:08 Podcast Introduction

3:08-13:23 Defining mindset pieces

13:23-26:29 Life Performance Tips

26:48-36:32 Practical elements of Training and Performance Habits

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Full Transcript

Matt Dixon  00:00

Just a quick note before we get going with today's show. It's all about the holidays this episode, and that means it must be time for Black Friday deals, and we have our own Black Friday deal. So I thought I would tell you about it. Look, let's face it, you're ambitious. If you're listening to this show, you're performance driven. Maybe you're hoping to crush your next triathlon, as the Americanos like to say. But also, if you're a purple patch listener, you want to excel at work. You want to show up your best self. Let's be honest, there's a lot of competing demands. You're juggling a career, probably family training and well, it feels like there's just not enough time to get it done. That's where we come in, because at purple patch, we simplify the path for you, we remove some of the cognitive load. We give you time back. Now, coaching isn't just about workouts. It's about creating a clear, customized plan that fits your life while helping you stay healthy, recovering smart and performing at your best no matter what your goals are. And so if you're tired of spinning wheels or ready to try a smarter approach, maybe we can unlock your potential together. What we've got is a one time risk free offer to get you going on our try squad program. Over the course of the month of November, you can take half off your first month of tri squad. That means you're going to get your first month for $75 we also offer a 30 day money back guarantee, but we're pretty sure that you're going to love it anyway. It's a great opportunity to get involved with your off season with us, lay the groundwork for your best year ever. It's going to unlock your potential and your effectiveness, not just in your sport, but I promise you across broader life, here's what you want to do. You want to head to purple patch fitness.com/squad purple patch fitness.com/squad very simply, select a monthly membership and then use this code, blackfriday24 that's blackfriday24. Very, very simple, and it should register the code. Give you half of that first month. The offer is good. Through November the 30th, good to go. Now, if you want to have a conversation, if you understand more about the programming, or maybe you want to broaden your perspective, and you're juggling between, should I go with squad or maybe, should I go with one to one coaching? We do currently have four spots available in our one to one coaching program, we will be delighted to set up a complimentary consultation with you. Just reach out to us at info@purplepatchfitness.com, with that, have a happy holiday season is all about equipping you to navigate well as a performance driven individual. Enjoy the show, folks. 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. You

Matt Dixon  03:06

And welcome to the purple patch podcast as ever your host, Matt Dixon, and here they come. You can hear that trainer rumbling. It is the holidays, a wonderful time for reflection, connection with family and friends, I hope a little bit of a rest and recuperation. But no one might rather type a friends that happen to be competing endurance athletes while juggling the rest of busy life. Sometimes the holidays can be a source of angst, anxiety, frustration. After all, you're committed, you're looking to go on a performance journey. You've been told by folks like me that consistency is the catalyst to great success, and now perhaps you're traveling there's a change. You're not working as much, but you've got other competing demands. Now are you going to possibly keep the progression going? Maintain that consistency train while you're navigating the holidays today, it's all about unlocking your potential and doing two things really embracing and enjoying your holidays so that you can maximize them at the same time, not letting the performance train go off the tracks. What I want to do is remove some of the angst, the anxiety, the bubbling frustration, and certainly any conflicts between you and your family and friends while you're trying to keep on training hard, and they just want to hang out with you. And so let's do it today. Your holiday guide from purple patch. We're going to go through a little bit of perspective and mindset. We're going to talk about some actionable strategies that you can do before and returning from holidays to ensure that you can maintain effectiveness across all of the important aspects of your life. And then I'm going to give you some insight and some perspectives into your training and how you might. About it, and maybe a little bit of a road map to help you. It doesn't matter whether you're training for a marathon, whether you're just training for life, or, of course, if you're a triathlete. So all of that in today's show, it is timed straight away for the meat and potatoes.

Matt Dixon  05:19

Yes, folks, it is the meat and potatoes, and we're going to break this up into three parts. The first is we're going to establish the right mindset for high performance during the holidays and go from there. Then we're going to get into part two, which is the importance of planning, setting yourself up so you can go through some prioritize, extra prioritization exercises to ensure that you can be effective. And then finally, some actionable tips. How do you navigate the holidays and stay on track without sacrifice of all of the benefits of your holidays? It should be pretty succinct, pretty simple, but most importantly, I hope, I hope that it's actionable for you, and it enables you to stay on track, but really enjoy and embrace what is a wonderful time of the year. So let's start with part one, mindset for high performance during your holidays. Let's consider it, I mentioned it before. Typically, the holidays are an important time. It's a moment that you get to connect with friends and family. It's a real chance to potentially reflect a little bit on your performance, sort of come out of the weeds of the daily grind, and also have a lot of rejuvenation and a little bit of a reset in many ways. And we certainly have an opportunity for a reduction of stress, particularly stress sources that are coming from work. And for many people, we get to get into the daily grind, and it's a great time to actually rejuvenate a little bit. But also, holidays are a little microcosm of change, and even when change is good, and you can get a lot of positive yield out of it, and they could be fun and enjoyable and escape and everything else, it can also be incredibly tough. For many people. I'm sure that you've experienced this a little bit. Maybe you've ended a holiday come back, you've escaped, you've stepped away. But then as soon as you re enter on that Sunday before the Monday of the return back to work, you feel the amplified stress, and you feel actually being overwhelmed with that feeling I've got so much to catch up on. Even as an athlete, you need to play a game of catch up and Chase, because, after all, you've just missed the last weeks or maybe the last days, and you feel like you're behind the eight ball. That's a source of a lot of anxiety. And so here are three important anchors that I believe establishes the right mindset when it comes to approaching holidays. The first remember that long term productivity in everything requires moments when you do step away. So remember that if you want to be a world champion in anything, your own version of a world champion, at least, it's going to require you to play for the long win. You want to play the long game on this and so on the journey of any sort of performance, there is a requirement, okay? It's non negotiable, a requirement that you step away. All of the research shows that this is the yield for long term high performance. And so what that really means is that no matter whether you're thinking about developing a world class athlete or building a business or becoming the best pianist possible, it doesn't matter what the arena we can't always be driving forward progression. Progression is not linear. It never happens. And so these are natural moments, holidays set in our calendars that are actually essential to make the effort to step away, recharge, take our mind off of the challenge and the program so that when we return, we can come back with vigor, but ultimately, ultimately make all of the other weeks and months highly effective. And so remember that as your dominant mindset, this is essential for me to get to where I want to go over the long term.

Matt Dixon  09:18

Really, what this is as a mindset component is that we live every single day just knocking over barriers, consistency, consistency, showing up, and that's really important. But a holiday is an opportunity for you to reset. And come from the 1000 foot level, right in the weeds, not to the 10,000 foot level, but to the 3000 foot level, reset, recharge, step away, so that when you go back into the weeds, eyes wide open, rejuvenated, physically and mentally, you're ready to go. And so first mindset, long term productivity, requires these moments. Number two, and this is an important component. For folks that really get anxious about falling behind, sometimes, in various aspects of life and performance, the best progression occurs by avoiding regression. Let me say that again, because we always think that it's growth, growth, growth, improve, improve, improve, improve in an athletic sense, stronger, fitter, faster, always driving and breaking down barriers, but quite often, and holidays included, the best progression we can make in the long term is just simply not sliding backwards. Now you're going to hear a lot about that in today's outline, when we get to the actionable tips. Our approach to help you navigate the holidays is not around enabling you to keep charging forward. Instead, it's deliberately more defensive with intention. It has the long term envision, and it sets you up to do quote, just enough to stay in the game. And this is a really important component, because we try and do two things at once, we're trying to keep progression going to some degree in whatever you're chasing, and let's keep it in athletics for now. At the same time, we want to leverage the moment, the opportunity that the holidays deliver. And so progression is a lack of regression. That's concept number two. And then finally, from a mindset standpoint, when a lot of us all naturally can fall into existing with in England, we would say blinkers. In the US, you would say blinders, but existing a little bit in selfish oblivion. Concept number two is, if you are spending your holidays with close friends or family, here's an important mindset. Don't build your holiday experience around you and your training. No one, including you is going to benefit from your work or training being the center of your mindset and practical logistics over the course of the holiday. And so instead flipping it upside down from the day to day, I would really encourage you to build any work that you do have to get done over the holidays, or any exercise or training that you want to do, build it around and integrate it into life and rejuvenation. And so as you listen to today's show, we're going to talk about that, building up blocks of rejuvenation and stepping away, ensuring that you are spending time with family and friends and then sneaking moments of either work or exercise or training into the fabric of that, and that's a really important shift in mindset, because so often it's all right, I'm going away, make it up to Hawaii. I'm going to register for my swim sessions. I'm going to make sure that I ride my bike. I'm going to rent a bike in Hawaii. I'm going to do my strength. I'm going to run, and then with anything left over, I'm going to spend it with my family and friends. That's probably not the approach we're looking for, flip it upside down and look for moments and opportunities. This mindset is really important because it's going to set you free, and it's also going to ensure that you're not the least popular person in the room, because nobody else wants to go away on holiday and think about you and your exercise and your training. So this is really important. Now a few other those are the three defining mindset pieces well that I think are really, really important. Let me throw in in part one as well, just a couple of other life performance tips of how you can sustain consistency while you're traveling or particularly busy. Number one, these small, incremental choices can compound integrated performance. So number one, really anchor in your routines. Create little mini routines when you travel or busy periods. That might be as simple as morning activation, maybe a little bit of hydration habits, making sure that you don't lose touch of those early morning hydration components, etc. Number two, really make sure you plan ahead. Pack your workout essentials for you guys that are athletes, getting your athletic gear in there, ensuring you bring resistance bands if you're not going to have access to a strength room or a gymnasium, identify nearby gyms that you can or maybe places that you might get to run so that you can plan ahead. And it reduces your cognitive load when you're actually away on holiday, and then leverage travel as an opportunity use it as a time for actually deeper rejuvenation. Remember, I'm labeled the recovery coach, something that I proudly carry around still those years later. And so use this as a holiday to actually lean into that pillar rather than thinking about driving forward, it's just a good perspective to look through. So that's part one. That's really the mindset piece. What are we actually trying to do here? Let's now move to part two, which is, I think one of the catalysts of giving you control, clarity. Be of expectations and really ensure that you can juggle all of the competing demands that actually, ironically, do come with a holiday planning is critical, and it's going to set you free a little bit, because really what we want to do is a prioritization exercise. Now you probably know all about my passion of organizational effectiveness, a purple patch. The habit that we like to build in is what we label the Sunday special, which on a regular week is simply every Sunday, putting aside 20 to 30 minutes to organize all of the components of life. You look at your life commitments that you have that might include going to the dentist or coaching Johnny's tennis team or whatever it might be. You also then go through your commitments and your focus for work. What are you looking to accomplish? What can wait till the next week? What are the important meetings that you might have, etc? And then you go through a process with all of that the left over time you're integrating the important habits that you have, so sleep, hydration, meal planning, etc, and an optimization challenge around your exercise or your training. What are you going to do for your key sessions? When are they going to be relative to the other demands in life, so that you have a semblance of clarity, of focus, your priorities, you're going to get that you're going to get done and you feel under control. So that's a really important component, and this was critical for our professional athletes that we coached, even though it's a very simple routine, because it got them to understand when they had to show up, and it also helped them be organized with all of the other components in life. And every single C suite executive that I work with leverages this tool, and it's incredibly accessible and simple. So there's no reason that you shouldn't do so too. But before you go away on any holidays, I think that that Sunday special, or whatever planning tool that you use for organizational effectiveness, this is your most important week to do it. And so often I see a lot of folks charging into the holidays and just boom, getting away and letting it all collapse. They actually move into just chaos. And I think that you can get a lot done with a Sunday special before you go on your holiday and think about what that looks like. It's a little bit different than the regular weeks of the Sunday special, because the first thing that you want to build in is all of the components of life. So you want to block out on your calendar moments in time that you're going to spend a ton of time on family, friends, free time, resting and downtime, etc, sleep, even you're putting in that so all of those really healthy things that you're going to do, connect with other people, go and be a little bit free, lays around and watch Thanksgiving Day Football, if you want to do that, whatever it might be, but really block that in. And it doesn't need to be overly type A and anal. You're not saying from 10am till 10:30pm I am going to rest and then I am going to go to the bathroom. It's not like that, but it's at least really blocking in these times. So you can get a landscape of it's a whole bunch of stuff that we're going to do that's really going to fill myself, that's going to help me connect with others, that's going to enable me to have some downtime, and that's really important. Then you can go through and think about, what if anything do I need to get done or maintain from a work standpoint, we live in a culture where many, many people, I understand, have to continue with some form of work over the course of the holidays, and that's a very strict prioritization exercise, because your mission cannot be I'm just going to maintain status quo a regular week of work while I'm traveling away to wherever you're doing or While I'm enjoying Thanksgiving, you have to go through an objective, and I would say, almost savage filtering process to say, these are the non negotiable commitments that I have to do while I travel. And so for me, for example, I have to, and I want to continue to do some of my training programs for the athletes that I coach individually, and I need to ensure that I'm tracking some non negotiable commitments around support, to ensure that our athletes are well supported with all of their questions. But I don't need to do aspects of team planning or product design or content development while I'm away on holiday. I can put that aside and so it reduces my overall work to a minimal, almost viable product, if you want to call it, that a minimal amount of work that I can do, and you want to plan when you're going to do that. You can't do it all, but plan it and be savage in your prioritization. The best thing you can do as well is. Is aligned with any important constituents in your life. For me, it would be Kelli, my wife, and say, Hey, this is a block that I'm going to go and do just two hours of work, and maybe on the Monday and the Wednesday and the Thursday, I'm going to have two hours each day. It's going to be then, and we can build the rest of the holiday time around that that gives us all clarity. There's no tension, because it's all anchored in communication, and I get to go and do the work as necessary. So that's really liberating, and that's helpful. And then you get to with the time left over. Remember, you've got rest, unstructured time, family time and friends time, those blocks of work that you might have to do. Then what you get to do is integrate blocks of exercise or training as you can. And remember, the mission isn't to maintain on your exercise and training the same type of training program that you would do on a regular week. For most people, it's suitably radically less. Yeah, you got an optimization challenge. Now, on the flip side, you might be one of those people that's got greatly more capacity to train, because you're not hanging out with family and friends and you're not working as much. And so in that case, I do just want to give you a tip of the head. Go and have fun. Go at it, but be really honest and smart with yourself. If you are one of the folks that is like the majority, then you're going to likely have a limited training capacity and put that in and plan it in a really honest and pragmatic way. You're going to do radically less. It might be less specific, and you should be fine with it. Remember, stopping regression is really important progression when you're in the holidays. That's one of our driving mindsets. And so the Sunday special, or whatever planning tool that you might use absolutely critical for you when it comes to holidays. And then there is a second Sunday special that can actually give you a sense of control and a reduction of anxiety, and that's on what we might call re entry. It is your next most important planning tool. When you come back and maybe you arrive back from travel on holidays and it's on a Saturday and suddenly you've got Sunday to prep back into work on Monday. That Sunday special is a really important component, because the natural tendency that we're all have, because we have stepped away from regular training and regular responsibilities at work and life is, goodness me, I need to catch up. I've just got a host of things that I need to get done, but there is a really important component that you need to do. Let's talk about training first. And what we're looking to do with both work re entry and training. Re entry is reduce the angst and reduce the blizzard. We can't get anywhere faster on this. And so with training, rather than coming back and just bam, the train is leaving the station, instead, you want to actually ramp into things. So I typically on a re entry back after holidays. Tend to have one, two or three days of easier endurance work, looking to get back into rhythm. Now I'm doing it for time starved athletes, especially because it tends to be a very busy time getting kids back into schedule with school and sports, everything else if you're at that age, and also a re entry to work. So you've got amplified stress in other areas. So I tend to put in as a coach, two to three days of easier ramping work. But that's going to help you regardless, even if you're not time starved. On the other side of things, ramping back in is really good, and then you build on into the third or fourth day, when you hit full four gas cylinders, and you go back into very strong work third or fourth day, back in that reduces, and you don't need to worry about playing catch up already, just in the same way as someone sick, you don't suddenly have to take all of that work that you had planned and you got sick and cram it into a double week. The next week you don't do it, you just move on. And so we just progress back in and get back into a regular, double underlined regular training routine, not a catch up routine. And I acknowledge this takes a little bit of bravery for you, but I think it's very, very important don't play catch up. Build back in. From a work standpoint, you're also in that re entry, Sunday special, or whatever planning tool you use, you also have the same mindset. In the first 72 hours, you don't want to try and get everything done that you missed or you decided to put off in your holiday time. Instead, think about what are the most important things that I can do to set myself up for a great next 10 days of work productivity so that first day beyond the Sunday special might be about. Out re entry to connecting with your team or your clients, doing some essential planning and communication side of stuff, and then the key priorities that are really important, but I tend to try and put off really important projects and any big picture planning and long term commitments well beyond into the third or fourth day, back into re entry at work. And so use, just like we do with an endurance athlete, use the first 72 hours, the first two to three days, ramping back in, and you're going to get back into rhythm. You're going to be in a better place. You're going to remove some of the pile of work feels like manure. Reduce that manure down so you can see over the top, and then get back into the longer term projects. Then giving yourself that little bit of a ramp, but a little bit of a runway into it is going to increase, is going to help you incredibly from a stress component and a control component. And so just like athletes, same way going back to work, it's almost the same thing, ready? Really, really important and so really around planning. I can't overstate this planning before you go with that Sunday special and a re entry, Sunday special is going to help so much as long as you're driven by the mindset that we talked about. So now, so, okay, great, but what about my training? What about my exercise? So let's dig into some of the practical elements around training and performance habits. Part three, navigating the holidays, staying on track without that sacrifice. Well, progression in the holidays, it's anchored in not allowing massive regression. Unless you are one of the few that are using the holidays like a training camp, and we're not going to talk too much about you today, apart from give you a big thumbs up. Go have it and go and have fun. What we're talking about is most folks that are going to spend a lot of time with family and friends, typically, including maybe some travel, and you're going to have a less favorable environment to go and integrate your trend. So what should you do? Well, the first thing, because we're thinking about regression here, is anchor, really critical habits. It doesn't matter whether you're training very hard leading up to a race, you're in daily life, and you're maybe in off season, or you're heading away from holidays, a baseline anchor to reduce stress and amplify your cognitive function, your energy and your health are some of the performance habits, and so don't throw that in the trash. You could be anywhere in the world, and you can retain really positive hydration habits, getting up in the morning, having a few big glasses of water, making sure that you're filling that hole from your dehydration that's occurred overnight, etc. You could be anywhere in the world, and you can still prioritize your sleep every night. You can be anywhere in the world, and you can still look to ensure that you're getting enough fiber on a day to day basis and enough protein to support your health and your well being. So those habits, dialing in consistency, asleep, daily, hydration, etc, build around those. Those are things that are very much in your control, and you can kind of do anywhere. Now with that, I will say, don't be shy of having a cookie or enjoying a few glasses of wine or whatever it is that is your vice or treat over the course of the holidays, be a little gluttonous when you go and have turkey dinner, or wherever you're into so far as the holidays, that's all great, but over the course of the holiday period, still anchor in your key habits, very, very important. And then when it comes to your exercise and training, the second portion of this, you want to deliver this or develop this within context of your schedule. So what I like to do with most of my athletes is think about the one or two key sessions that you can get done relative to what your access will be. And no matter where you're at, you can probably hit one short to medium. About high intensity session sought high intensity intervals, the old classic, one minute on, one minute off, hard, easy, hard, easy, really, really, powerful, really important to stop progression.

Matt Dixon  29:15

The modality that you do that I don't really care if you're a very strict runner. I don't care if you hop on a spin bike. I don't care if you walk up and down a hill very strong. It doesn't matter the modality. What it cares is you're stressing the heart, and you're getting the system up with a series of short bouts. So get it in one short, high intensity. The second component is, if possible, it's likely that you want to try and sneak in one or two strength sessions. Now, you might not have access to a gym. Don't worry, we're going to talk about that. But getting in one strength session, or two strength sessions, and one high intensity as you go away, a great anchor point, and then everything else, all of the other. Exercise and training that you might do, finally, highly flexible. They should be low intensity, conversation. You should be flexible with your duration. In other words, it's really dependent on your time. You have 15 minutes, you do 15 minutes, you have 60 minutes, do 60 minutes. And the actual modality that you're doing, it's absolutely finding holidays to do other things. If you happen to be in Minneapolis and you're a runner and someone's got a snow bike, go play on the snow bike. Go and have fun. And if you happen to be in Utah and you don't have access to your bike, go on a really nice hike. In other words, mix up the modalities. It's not going to hurt you for a few days to a week or so, go and do other stuff, flexible and duration, flexible and modality. Most of the intensity can be low, and that gives you a world of opportunity. And so the third component here, it really goes in hand in hand with the second. You've got to allow specificity and progression fall by the wayside. You might not be getting in a highly structured bike trainer workout, and that's okay. You might instead go and do a local 5k a turkey trot, or you might go for a hike with your family. In fact, you're getting a whole bunch of other good that occurs with that. And so don't be phased at all that panic about a week or so that you've lost a little bit of specificity, because you know the truth, it's just going to refresh you mentally and physically. It's going to allow your body to do something different, and it's not going to make a darn bit of difference, not an iota of difference, in your long term performance progression. Give yourself permission to go have fun and do other stuff, and if you don't exercise for a couple of days from your way, that's all right, there's a benefit to that too. There's a whole bunch of good that occurs with this. Now, the final component to this, you've got to be willing to think out of the box. You see how I'm cascading here. You don't have access to a gym, and yet I told you you need to get your strength in, but you don't have access to any heavy strength gear. If you don't have access to a gym, you can't do strength. Can you? You can do something fun, be creative. Think out of the box. Maybe develop a little circuit. Maybe it's a rotating 10 or 15 minutes where you're going 10 push ups, 10 squats with your body weight. Or maybe you get to hold something heavy. Maybe I'm holding Baxter, some core exercise of choice, rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat is getting the heart up. You're doing some functional movements. You're keeping the body tone the muscles activated. Do it for 15 minutes. Bada bing, you can do it in a hotel room. You can do it in the guest room of your brother's house. Whatever it might be, fantastic. Be creative. Draw from the exercise that you have access to, that you do at home, and mix them up. Maybe the second day. I'm not going to go and do 15 burpees. Then I'm going to do a core exercise, then 15 lunges on each leg, then another core exercise, and I'm going to rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, a little fun circuit. Stuff that you can do that is lacking specificity. Is not going to include any progression, but it is going to really ensure that it impacts positively, an avoidance of regression. That's what we care about. So all of this is really answering the question of a simple phrase, what is my minimum effective dose? What can I do for my training? Sort of sessions, intensity over duration, a little bit of out of the box, thinking of strength. Go and do it. And when I look at the week, when I build my athletes programs. I don't say on Monday I want to do this on Tuesday. You have to do that on Wednesday. You have to do this unless they tell me that's exactly when they're access points. Instead, what I say it is, build a buffet when you go away. And I'll just pick one of the holidays. You're going to go away for Christmas week or Thanksgiving week. Let's go buffet. You've got your high intensity one you're going to do, you've got your one or two strength workouts, and here's a whole bunch of other modalities. Here's your buffet. And put it in when it fits Matt, you've got to run for me. And it says between 20 and 60 minutes, yeah, depends how much time you have, because if you're playing Monopoly with family, then you might only have 20 minutes to sneak out before dinner, but at least you haven't pulled away from your family, and that's the mindset that should drive you. This is strategic indulgence, indulgence in yourself to rejuvenate, indulgence with your family, maybe a little bit of indulgence. Intelligence with some of your food and wine that you might enjoy, but you're going to lean on recovery and you're going to do just enough, the minimal effective dose to enable you to come back and hit the ground running. That's a holiday guide. That's how you do it. It enables you, what's that word, Barry to have fun, and that's the important thing. The holidays, life disruptions, they're not barriers to your performance. I want you to remember that they're not barriers to your performance. They're a part of your performance journey. And the goal for us is to adapt to the holidays, stay consistent, but emerge with a renewed sense of purpose, joy, motivation, as I'd say, focus on simplicity, get the basics right, remove the distractions, and don't be quite as obsessive. It's going to be okay. Happy holidays, everyone. I am very thankful for all of you listening and watching the show. I appreciate it. Got big plans for the show ahead, but right now, I'm going to go and have, well, I might have a glass of port. Why not take care, 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.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Black Friday deal, performance driven, cognitive load, customized plan, risk-free offer, off-season training, holiday guide, mindset strategies, planning priorities, rejuvenation blocks, minimal effective dose, training flexibility, recovery coach, organizational effectiveness, re-entry planning

Carrie Barrett