32 Ed Baker -Purpose, Patience, and Performance Lead to IRONMAN Victory
Purple Patch Podcast
Matt Dixon
4.8 • 647 Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2018
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Article about Ed’s IRONMAN Lake Placid Victory
This week, we revisit a former guest with a playback of Episode 9 with Ed Baker. Ed is an accomplished and impressive business executive, serving as Head of International Growth at Facebook and then VP of Growth and Product at Uber until the Spring of 2017.
In addition to his business accolades, he is the father of three children (with another one on the way this Fall) and, over the last two years, he has taken a leap of faith into triathlon under the leadership of Matt Dixon.
On July 22, 2018, Ed Baker put his months of training and education to the test at IRONMAN Lake Placid and HE WON - OVERALL.
This episode, recorded in February 2018, takes place while Ed was at the Purple Patch Pro Camp in Scottsdale. Yes, Dixon threw this triathlon newbie to the professional wolves and they had a feast, but it gives you a glimpse into the journey and progression of Ed that would lead to his first IRONMAN victory.
Throughout the conversation, you’ll hear them discuss Ed’s journey from athlete-to-executive, and then back to an athlete. They also came away with many insights and lessons for any high-performing individual, and these are the nuggets that Matt and Ed discuss so thoroughly in this episode, including the:
- Benefits of maintaining an exercise or training routine even as a busy executive
- Value of having a coach to help you define goals and realize your full potential
- Similarities between sport and business - setting small goals and having the ability to check in frequently, embracing baby steps
- Many parallels between professional athletes and executives, including an insatiable thirst for personal evolution and growth
- Importance of nailing the basics both in work and life since that makes up 95% of performance success
- Qualities of successful people - humility, friendliness and a good sense of humor
How did he go from triathlon newbie to IRONMAN champion?
Talent Management: With an athlete like Ed, the coach better be equipped to say no as much as yes -- as talent requires management. To manage Ed’s progression, Matt had to be very careful with load and progression, ensuring that he didn’t just dump swimming and cycling onto an already comprehensive running background, and didn’t just mimic old training habits. The key has been patience and careful progression.
A Race Plan for Performance: Ed’s race plan this weekend was simple. Go and train all day. He ‘loves’ to race, but this would be an event to train. This approach means a humble mindset, a cautious and patient approach, and a complete avoidance of thinking about places, times or qualification.
Create a Positive Race Experience: This humble approach, with the focus on the occasion and joy of it, was the gateway to future performance.
Yes, Ed won the race and had a magical day, but the key is how he got there. He listened, was patient, and despite his natural racing instincts, he had the courage to hold back to allow the magic to happen. Now he can learn, evolve and improve.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Matt Dixon and welcome to the Purple Patch podcast. The mission of Purple Patch is to empower and |
| 0:05.8 | educate every human being to reach their athletic potential. Through the lens of athletic potential, |
| 0:11.5 | you reach your human potential. The purpose of this podcast is to help time-starved people everywhere |
| 0:17.2 | integrate sport into life. And this is the Purple Patch podcast and as ever your host Matt Dixon here. |
| 0:26.1 | And this week, what we're going to use this week to have a little glance back a little? |
| 0:31.4 | And we're going to have a checkpoint on one athlete's performance journey. |
| 0:35.4 | You see, about six months ago, I invited a brand new Purple Patch |
| 0:38.6 | athlete to the show. His name is Ed Baker. And at the time of the recording, we're at the |
| 0:43.7 | Purple Patch Pro Camp down at Scottsdale, Arizona, and I'd invited Ed to tag along to the camp, |
| 0:49.9 | hoping that he would get battered, bruised and punished, all by my female professional athletes. |
| 0:56.0 | You see, Ed was a busy executive and father. He had three kids, one on the way, by the way, |
| 1:00.5 | making number four coming just before the Hawaii I'm in. And he was the former head of growth |
| 1:05.1 | at Facebook and the head of product and growth at Uber. But he was just beginning his journey into triathlon. |
| 1:12.8 | As a newcomer to the sport, his journey was going to be steep, but very long. He comes into the |
| 1:18.9 | sport with a great pedigree in running as both captain of the Harvard Cross Country team, as well as an |
| 1:23.6 | Olympic trials athlete in the marathon. So I knew it was going to be a fun story to track and |
| 1:28.4 | follow and hence, once we start working with each other, I said, hey, come along to the pro camp, |
| 1:33.2 | what have you got to lose? We can come and beat you up and hopefully accelerate the learning curve |
| 1:38.0 | a little bit. In the discussion that you're going to hear again today, you're going to hear him |
| 1:42.2 | talk all about his training for the indoor rowing championships, which was the little amuse-boosh that he did before really |
| 1:48.9 | diving into triathlon. Yep, well, to update you, he went on to win that event, and now he's the |
| 1:54.5 | world champion in his age category in Erd growing. But since then, on his triathlon journey, |
... |
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