Moment 18 - Ben Fogle on How He Lost & Found His Confidence

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Being the writer, tv presenter and adventurer that he is, you’d be forgiven for thinking Ben Fogle is a man full of confidence, but that hasn’t always been the case. In this moment episode, Ben takes us along his journey with self-confidence. From early childhood to the top of Everest, Ben reveals how he built his confidence and learned to love who he is. Episode 81 - https://g2ul0.app.link/pcgvNmfwDib Ben: https://twitter.com/benfogle https://www.instagram.com/benfogle/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Steven Bartlett?

  Ben, as I read through your story, your books, your interviews, and I remember watching a YouTube documentary of you sailing across the Atlantic many years ago. Obviously, the most striking, distinctive, standout thing about the way that you've chosen to live your life over the last couple of decades is your seemingly insatiable appetite for adventure, risk, challenge, extreme adventure, as it relates to Everest and things like that. Where did that come from?

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I think it's, do you know, it's not necessarily an absolute thirst for adventure. I think it's about kind of finding the real me. So if I go, if I go right back, as a child, I was so shy. I had no confidence. I failed all my exams. I was hopeless at sport. And actually, I think, I think all of the things that I've done since have been about like rebuilding. It sounds, it sounds a weird way to describe it, but it's not just, I'm not an adrenaline junkie. There's, there's this assumption that maybe, you know, that that would be how to describe myself. But it's not that at all. Actually,

• 1:25Speaker 01

  loads of the things I do are really, really slow. You know, like rowing across the Atlantic took best part of two months. Walking across Antarctica took many, many months. Climbing Everest took many months. So actually, if, if it was jumping off a mountain, base jumping, or going on a motorbike, or even a mountain bike down a steep slope, I hate all that. It's too fast. I quite like this slow movement, but I'm quite good at long endurance events. And, and all of those have been about rebuilding my confidence.

• 1:58Steven Bartlett?

  And what took your confidence? Or why didn't you have confidence?

• 2:01Speaker 01

  I think.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  I think it's the fact that I was I was hopeless academically for many different reasons. Undiagnosed dyslexia, a kind of a slight mistake, maybe not on my parents' part, but they my father's Canadian, he wanted me to be bilingual. So I was sent to a French school and I just I just I just didn't I couldn't do the French school, the French system. And with all apologies to any French watching or listening to this, it's just quite a hard system, the French one. And and it was quite it was quite strict. And I'm just, as a child, I just I was surrounded by dogs. Dad was a vet, mum was an actress. It was all quite a liberal. My actual childhood at home was

• 2:46Speaker 01

  quite liberal, full of actors, lots of drink, lots of animals around. It was, I suppose, crazy, but normal for me. But then in this French system, it was very rigid. And and it meant that I didn't learn any French and my English went backwards. So when I went back into the system, I was way behind. And it and the result was the combination of that and dyslexia just meant I was hopeless. I could barely write. And I failed all my exams. And I was surrounded by people who were better than me at everything. Everyone everyone seemed to be more handsome when it if it was the boys, they had more luck with the girls, they were better at playing sports, because they could actually kick football, unlike me that have I have two left legs. And and they

• 3:31Speaker 01

  were good at academics. And when it came to the exams, they just they didn't even, you know, they could be up all night watching stuff and then the next day turn up for the exam. Whereas I was just, I was almost making myself vomit. I was so nervous about the exams because I knew I was going to fail. And this is this is the first thing, I convinced myself I'd fail. And of course, I ended up failing, because what I've discovered since is that so much of what we do and what we endure and how we test ourselves is here in the mind. And if you go in with a negative attitude, which I had, then it's self fulfilling. And the result was hopeless at everything. And it just stripped me of my confidence. I had, you know, I just, I didn't believe in myself.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  And that that went right through, you know, probably into my 30s, if I'm to be really honest, I think that was always lingering over me, this little voice just telling me that I was that I wasn't good enough at what I did.

• 4:30Steven Bartlett?

  And was, did that voice come from your own assessment of yourself? Or was, was there external forces bullying or your parents or?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  No, my parents were amazing. You know, my, my parents have, I, I don't think they could have done more for me than they did. I think it was, no, I think it was all internal, if I'm to be honest. I think there's a, I think there was an external pressure to conform. Because if you think about how, if you take the schooling model and the education model, it is kind of about conforming because exams are all about getting the, the correct grades. We're, we're learning to a, a specific model that has been set by the government. And, and it's, it's sort of painting by numbers when it, when you think about education.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  And if you don't hit those targets, then, then you've effectively failed the system. And for me, you can hear it by accent, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm posh. I went to a private school. Mum and dad worked really hard to send me to a private school. And actually, there was a great guilt that the fact that they had worked so hard to be able to afford to send me there. And yet I still failed. So I think actually a lot of that voice was internal. And actually, I wish if I could go back in time, I wish I could kind of shake my shoulder, shake a, a young me on the shoulders and go, just don't, don't overthink things. Just chill out a little bit.

• 5:58Steven Bartlett?

  And were you a chronic over thinker?

• 6:00Speaker 01

  I was, and I still am. I still overthink things, if I'm to be honest. I, I, I, to work in the medium that I work in is a little bit strange because I, I don't really belong in this medium. When I say this medium, you know, it, it, front of house where, as a presenter, because I've got a really thin skin and I overthink everything. So when I read something negative, whether that's on social media, whether that's a newspaper review, whether that's a journalist that has written something which I don't like, or, or which doesn't seem true, I take it really personally, which is kind of really strange. Because I should have, I should have been able to overcome that after 20 years. And I'm almost there, Stephen, I'm almost there.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  But one of the reasons I'm happy to talk about it is because I know, I'm, I know I'm not alone. I know there are many, many people out there who are high achievers, who've done brilliant things in life, but are still burdened with their own voice of doubt. And through all of these challenges I've done. I've been able to really build that confidence and I'm, I'd say I'm a few hundred metres from the summit now of peak confidence and I can't wait until I'm there. I hope I do, I hope I reach that point.

• 7:13Steven Bartlett?

  What is it about those challenges and this sort of slow, monotonous nature of those challenges, or just the challenges themselves, or challenge as a, you know, as a, as a construct itself, that helped you to build confidence? Cause I'm, one of the most frequent questions I'm asked in the comment section of this podcast or on Instagram or anywhere else is, um, how do I build my confidence? And I think we live in a culture, especially on Instagram, where it seems like everyone else is super confident and chasing their dreams. And we, we never get to hear the whispers of their self doubt. So it might feel like we're the only ones. So I guess my question is, how, how, how did those challenges build your confidence?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  It, it, it happened by accident. So that's the first thing to say. I didn't chase it thinking this is going to help. It, it was like a slow series of blocks that were built. So it started when I failed my A levels and I went off travelling. I went to Costa Rica, a place that I know you love. And I went to university out there. And I, and I think it was spending time in a different culture, in a different culture, country with a different culture, different language, different religion, away from home, away from mum and dad. And, and first of all, I had to kind of think on my own. I couldn't defer to other people. Up until that point, I'd always kind of, dad, what do you, what do you think? Mum, what do you, should I do that? You know, I, I, I didn't trust my

• 8:35Speaker 01

  own judgement. So first of all, that was gone. So I had to stand or fall on my own decisions. And then secondly, just the immersion in this exciting new place was just, I mean, it just, it, it was the most exciting year I've ever had, if I'm to be really honest.

• 8:53Steven Bartlett?

  There's going to be so many Ben, 18 year old Ben, Ben's listening to this right now, who have listened to this and thought, you know what, I'm really low confidence and I've been knocked and, you know, I'm not sure if I'm good enough. And I've been called a failure by my job, dad, whatever it is. What do you say to those people, having walked, you know, lived their life? What do you say to them? What's the advice you give them?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Don't.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Don't buy into someone else's narrative. That's what you're doing by listening to the failure, whether it's absolute words coming out of someone's mouth saying, well, you're no good. Whether it's, whether it's even perceived narrative that you go into a pub and everyone looks like they're having more fun than you and, and the girl or the boy doesn't want to be with you, they want to be with the, the other person. I think, I think you just have to own your narrative. You are you in this world of, what are we 6.7 billion? I probably got that wrong, but in this world of many, many billions of people, there is no, there is no other Stephen. Yeah, that is fact. Yeah, there might be someone similar, there might be someone with the same abilities,

• 10:01Speaker 01

  the same body type, maybe even looks a bit like you, but you are completely unique because your personality belongs to you. And don't try and change that. Don't try and be the person that other people want you to be, be the person you are. And it's, it's, it's a really hard thing to buy into because I spent so much of my life trying to be the person I thought society wanted me to be. Always embarrassed that I wasn't, I was either too posh or I wasn't posh enough. I was either too successful or not successful enough. You see what I mean? It's, it's almost like you're always just trying to fit in, but actually, once you own your narrative, once you're confident that you are unique in whatever way, it might

• 10:43Speaker 01

  be a, it might be a geeky kind of unique. It might be a cool kind of unique. It might be a quirky kind of unique, but that's if, if you can own your personality, your narrative and accept that you're halfway there to, to this self-belief and this confidence. And, and that also means not trying to buy into someone else's narrative. You might think you want to be the, if you're the geeky one, you might think you want to be the cool kid. You might think that you want to be playing in the first football team. You might think that you want to be sitting at that top table, but that's not necessarily where your personality.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Um, uh, wants you to be. And I think it, stop wanting and start being.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.