What type of person are you? What do you represent? What do you want your life to look like in 5 years? What does success look like for you?

Coincidentally, much of the content I consumed this week had an underlying theme of introspection for future improvement. Life is busy. Time seems to fly. We get locked in on our routines, blink, look up, and a month has passed.

Without the intentional effort of sitting back and constantly reevaluating / reaffirming who we are, what we value, and what we want - we can let years of potential progress slip by merely going through the motions.

I hope this week’s Brain section sparks some thought internally about something you can immediately do to counteract this going through of the motions.

My word for 2024 was “Intentional.” I have strived to live to that, but if I am being honest, I have of course fallen short in certain areas. It’s hard to balance pushing yourself physically, expanding your relationships, performing at work, etc. Balance is a never-ending pursuit. So long as we acknowledge where our focus and values lie in the current moment, we can find peace in knowing that maybe right now you are focusing on your body and your family. The side-effect could be a slight drop in performance at work, but if you achieve your physical goals, could you see a long-term improvement in happiness? Questions we have to ask ourselves.

Let’s have a week -

Brain - A Mental Workout

Podcast of the week: MTNTough Podcast: Dr. Jason Selk - Game-Changing Mindset Adjustments

You work out your muscles - you push your cardiovascular system - but what intentional steps are you taking to work out your mind?

Dr. Jason Selk is an author, keynote speaker, and mental coach who has been employed by Fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams, and more to teach what he believes to be the fundamental approaches to developing a more resilient mind.

This podcast is full of great insights, but one I had never heard of before that I will be implementing immediately is the “Mental Workout.”

In Dr. Selk’s words: “The Mental Workout is a 5-step process that takes approximately one minute and 40 seconds to complete and is scientifically proven to improve confidence, focus, and performance.”

The “workout” is as follows:

1. Centering Breath: Breathe in for 6 seconds, hold for 2, breathe out for 7 seconds.

2. Identity Statement: Repeat in your head your identity statement. This is very much like a personal mantra. Come up with two to three sentences that describe exactly what and who you want to be, making certain to say it as if it has already occurred. For example, my identity statement is, "I outwork the competition every day, and I am the most effective performance coach in the country. I experience true love as a husband and father."

3. Personal Highlight Reel: Take 60 seconds total to visualize success. In the first 30 seconds, create a visual of who you want to be and how you want your life to be five years from now. Be specific and include the most important personal and professional aspects. Then take another 30 seconds to visualize how you want your upcoming day to go. See in your mind a few important successes that will propel you to be on track for exactly where you want to be in five years.

4. Identity Statement: Repeat to yourself your personal mantra (same as Step 2)

5. Centering Breath: Take another deep breath just as you did in Step 1. Be sure to take the full time for each part of the breath.

Dr. Selk recommends that this be completed a bare minimum of 3 days a week, with the idea that we are consistently reinforcing to our brains who we are, what we value, and what is immediately in our control to progress on our goals.

The podcast focuses heavily on “PCT - Problem Centric Thought” vs “RSF - Relentless Solution Focus.” We have become culturally accustomed to voicing and talking about problems, which is great for connection, but can cause mental roadblocks if too heavily weighed upon. In order to gradually grow towards a solution-focused mindset, we have to train our brains to focus on solutions, which in turn requires us to train our brains to be more resilient when problems arise. Give the mental workout a try to help -

Body - The 80 / 20 Rule For Running

Getting into running, and any cardio routine really, can be a dreadful task at the beginning. If you are starting from a relative “0”, not only can it be intimidating to figure out where to start, but also how.

Most people start running to get in better shape, primarily from a physique perspective. The majority of the rest have found themselves talked into signing up for some distance race by one of their friends. The questions then become: “How many days a week do I run?” - “How long do I go for?” - “How intense should each workout be?”

In the beginning, any cardio effort is going to feel like a near-max effort. Your heart rate is going to skyrocket, your breath is going to be short, and your body’s fight or flight response is going to add mental resistance as it wonders “Hey, we don’t normally do this…what the hell is going on? Stop!”

If we too early on spend the majority of the time you set aside for cardio “maxing out” your heart rate, your odds of long-term consistent success are going to be fairly low. You will dread your runs, your body will teeter on the line of injury, and you will be sore most of the week - quite the sales pitch for getting started right?

Instead, I recommend outlining your plan with an 80 / 20 focus, which entails 80 percent of your workouts at a slow, controlled heart rate (Zone 2 - ability to have a conversation during it), with 20% in the higher intensities (Sprints, hills, faster miles, etc.).

Without looking into the science, one would think that pushing through really hard workouts is the way to expand your cardiovascular fitness. Run a mile as fast as you can. Do it again in a few days. Try to run a little faster. Try to run a little further at the same pace - repeat. What modern science tells us is that it is actually spending longer periods of time on our feet in those lower heart rate zones that have the most impact on your ability to run further, run faster, and run for longer.

Look to this for an example 80 / 20 split:

• 6 Days a week: 4 days at “Zone 2”, 2 days of sprints, faster workouts

• 4 - 5 Days a week: 3-4 days at “Zone 2”, 1 day of higher intensity

• 3 Days a week: 2 days at “Zone 2”, 1 day of higher intensity

• 2 Days a week: 2 days at “Zone 2” - the best bang for your buck

Zone 2 and terms can be confusing. Here’s a resource that helps explain in more depth: Understanding Heart Rate Zones

To quickly calculate your Zone 2 heart rate so you can break it down into these zones, I would follow the “MAF 180 Method” which asks you to subtract your age from 180. For me, that is (180 - 31) = 149. So my Zone 2 efforts are strategically focused on keeping my heart rate between ~145 - 150 BPM.

If you don’t have a watch or chest strap to monitor your heart rate, go with the talk feel, which is as simple as being able to go at a pace for 30 min + where you could have a conversation throughout the whole effort. For some, this will mean a drastic slowing of pace, but over time, you will improve with the ability to consistently show up for your next workout.

Book - Right Thing, Right Now - Continued

You weekly readers are in the loop on our book of July - “Right Thing, Right Now" by Ryan Holiday. For a refresher on previously covered content and an intro to this book, look to Volume 23 of the Superset, which is linked here.

I wanted to simply share a few more powerful passages from this read, as I have made my way through about 65% of the book:

• “Do your best. Become what you can be. You owe the world that much. It makes a difference, even if others are indifferent to it: People who realize their potential employ other people, they inspire other people, open doors for other people, discover and make things of use for other people, create markets for other people, have a platform they can use to speak to and for other people. The decision to participate in this system - for yourself and thus for other people? This is a moral choice.”

• “Discipline can feel constraining, like it’s telling you what you can’t do. Justice is something different. It is an ideal to aspire to, something higher to aim at. That’s what a north star is.”

• “We often know what the right thing to do is. The problem is timing. Is this the right opportunity? The right moment? To a person of integrity, though, the right time is obvious.”

• “It’s not just a rule, it’s a way of living. The Stoics said we should try to see every person we meet as an opportunity for kindness. This is a wonderful change in perspective. It transforms daily life, as challenging and noxious as it can be, into a series of chances, one after another, to be nice, to do something nice, to be considerate, to make a positive difference.”