Podcasts Health Purple Patch Podcast 03 Sami Inkinen - How a Time-Starved CEO Creates Sustainable High Performance

03 Sami Inkinen - How a Time-Starved CEO Creates Sustainable High Performance

Published: Jan. 23, 2018, 2:01 p.m.

In this eye-opening episode, Matt goes one-on-one with one of his athletes, Sami Inkinen.

Growing up on a farm in Finland, Sami was always intrigued by health, wellness, and athletic performance. He did ride his bike or cross-country ski to-and-from school most days, after all!

He moved to the United States in 2003 to attend Stanford Business School, and it's there where he met his friend and business partner, Pete Flint, and, together, they founded Trulia, eventually turning it public. Today, he is the CEO and Founder of Virta Health, a company on a mission to reverse Type 2 Diabetes in 100 million people by 2025.

It was a revelation about his own health that was the catalyst for this new mission. You see, even though Sami was and still is a top performer both in sport and life, he made the mistake that so many of us make: burning the candle at both ends. \u201cIn 2008,\u201d he says, \u201cI had a view that the more hours you train, the faster you become and the more hours you work, the more effective you are.\u201d That way of life led to frequent bouts of flu and fever. Even worse, he recalls, he was forgetting common words and names. He didn\u2019t realize at the time, but he was also on his way to becoming pre-diabetic.

This way of life is a slippery slope for a high-performing athlete and CEO, which is why Purple Patch Fitness and the Matt Dixon \u201cPillars of Performance\u201d were such a good fit for Inkinen. He put these philosophies into practice during his triathlon training and the results have been astonishing. Here are just a few of Sami\u2019s achievements:

Surely an athlete with these results must train upwards of 20-25 hours per week! Not in this case. Sami did this all on a recipe of 10-12 hours per week.

How is this possible? Well, discipline and trust are two ingredients in this equation. Matt and Sami dive deep into training philosophies and they discuss what\u2019s important to success and life, work, and sport including:

  • Challenges while juggling work, life, and training
  • The value of having a coach
  • The key elements of setting up successful training on limited hours
  • Tips for managing life and schedules each week
  • Mistakes of aspirational and ambitious athletes
  • Importance of adopting a \u201cgrowth\u201d mindset instead of \u201cresults\u201d mindset
  • His favorite free recovery tool
  • Rapid fire questions on success

Most recently, Sami and his wife chartered off on a record-breaking 45-day row from San Francisco to Hawaii that they chronicled together at FatChanceRow.org.\xa0

Ultimately, the goal of Sam\u2019s success is one that we should all share: Creating Sustainable High Performance in all aspects of life.

We hope you enjoy this high performance episode.

To get a Sami sample training week, visit PurplePatchFitness.com. Here, you can also learn more about our Coaching Services, Training Camps and Matt's Latest Book, Fast Track Triathlete.

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:00-:21 Recorded Intro

:21-:3:45 \xa0Welcome and What\u2019s Coming Up in Future

3:45-7:15 \xa0Word of the Week: Sugar

7:30-54:30 Sami Inkinen Introduction and Interview

54:30 Visit PurplePatchFitness.com for a Sample Sami Week of Training

Follow us and learn more about our Coaching Services, Training Camps and Matt's Latest Book, Fast Track Triathlete:

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