Roger Seip - Master Your Mind: Counterintuitive Strategies To Refocus And Re-Energize Your Runaway Brain

ROGER SEIP

ROBB ZBIERSKI

Cover image: SEBASTIAN KAULITZKI / Getty Images
Cover design: Wiley

Copyright 2019 by Freedom Personal Development, LLC. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Seip, Roger, author. | Zbierski, Robb, author.

Title: Master your mind : counterintuitive strategies to refocus and

re-energize your runaway brain / Roger Seip, Robb Zbierski.

Description: First Edition. | Hoboken : Wiley, 2018. | Includes index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018037031 (print) | LCCN 2018043809 (ebook) | ISBN

9781119508175 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9781119508168 (ePub) | ISBN 9781119508182

(hardback) | ISBN 9781119508168 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781119508175 (ePub)

Subjects: LCSH: Decision making. | Problem solving. | BISAC: BUSINESS &

ECONOMICS / Decision-Making & Problem Solving. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS /

Development / Business Development.

Classification: LCC HD30.23 (ebook) | LCC HD30.23 S445 2018 (print) | DDC

650.101/9dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037031

This book is dedicated to everyone who kept asking me, When is your book coming out?

Robb Zbierski

Need speed? Slow down.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Life and business lessons come to us at the weirdest times. The idea for this book hit me when I was passed by a 78-year-old grandma on the running trail.

Id been trying unsuccessfully to train for a marathon for a couple of years. Id actually run a couple and was trying to get back into shape to run a personal best, and I hadnt been making any real progress. The trouble was that I kept getting injured first a foot, then a knee, then a hip and each injury would sideline me from running for a couple months. And then Id have to start training all over again. It was this constant process of one step forward, two steps back.

In trying to figure out how to be a faster runner with more endurance, I read a number of books that espoused the idea of training at an incredibly slow pace to ultimately get faster. When I first stumbled onto this teaching, it made no sense at all. Id always been taught that if you want to go faster, you train faster. Going slow to go fast sounds totally counterintuitive and backward, right?

Well, the thing is, it actually works. Since this isnt really a running book, I wont get into all the nerdball science of why it works, but heres the short version:

For running anything longer than about a mile, you must rely on your bodys aerobic system. Thats the energy production system in your body that allows you to burn fat for fuel and use oxygen most efficiently, and is best developed by making yourself train at a pace that does raises your heart rate, but only to a level where youre not even breathing very hard. For me, that was a pace that was painfully, agonizingly, embarrassingly s-l-o-o-o-w. The idea is that running while keeping your heart rate in this Target Zone allows your aerobic system to develop. As your aerobic system gets stronger and more turned on, your body starts using oxygen more efficiently and your speed naturally increases. Like I said, it seemed a little backwards, but here I was not really getting anywhere with what I was doing, so I thought, Okay, what have I got to lose?

For me that process ultimately transformed (and is actually still transforming) me into a faster runner, but its a very incremental process, especially at first. Its also a humbling process it aint sexy. After just a few weeks of consistent but v-e-r-r-r-ry slow running, my commitment was put to the test by a cute little old lady.

Keep in mind, Ive been an athlete since I was 15 years old. Not a great athlete by any stretch, but an athlete nonetheless. Im intentional about my physical fitness and Im competitive. So as Im leisurely jogging along one morning (training slow, keeping the heart rate down, right?), you can imagine that Im getting passed by people on the trail. When the 20-something 6-foot-4 dude with the beautiful gazelle-like stride and the University of Wisconsin Track Team T-shirt whipped by, I was not embarrassed. Shortly thereafter, when the 30-something grad student passed me up, I remained unconcerned. But when the 4-and-a-half-foot-tall granny caught me from behind, I started having a little problem with my ego. Dont get me wrong, she was super nice and gave me a lovely smile as she ran by but she promptly left me in the dust.

I couldnt believe it. I had just been smoked by a runner twice my age!

(Side note: Can we please set aside the idea that my outrage was totally ridiculous? Im aware of how silly I was being. I mean, we werent actually even in a race, but still, a guys gotta have standards.)

The best thing that this small incident brought about was that it made me look at what I was doing. Unnecessary as it was, I got worked up enough to ask Is this training slow thing even