How To Build A High Performance Mindset - Jake Humphrey

Jake Humphrey is a television presenter, journalist and host of the High Performance Podcast. Jake has spent a career talking to some of the highest performing humans on the planet, but it wasn't until he began his podcast that he really started to unpack their tools, tactics and mindsets. Today we get to hear some of the most important lessons he's uncovered. Expect to learn why holistic high performance is so important, who Jake was most shocked by on the podcast, the most important insights Jake has applied to his own life, why taking responsibility for everything is the only strategy that matters, how to focus on being present, why Jake is leaving everything on the table and much more.. Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at https://bit.ly/proteinwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get 15% discount on the amazing 6 Minute Diary at https://bit.ly/diarywisdom (use code MW15) Get 10% discount on your first month from BetterHelp at https://betterhelp.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Buy High Performance - https://amzn.to/3rxSSiX Follow Jake on Twitter - https://twitter.com/mrjakehumphrey Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #highperformance #mindset #jakehumphrey - 00:00 Intro 01:19 What High Performance Means 05:25 What Jake Learned from Jonny Wilkinson 10:12 Why High Performers Are Generally Less Happy 24:12 How High Performers Deal with Downfalls 36:46 Which Lesson Impacted Jake the Most 42:02 Daily Practices to Improve Mindset 50:31 Where to Find Jake - Join the Modern Wisdom Community on Locals - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Listen to all episodes on audio: Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I look at people all the time and I think all of you are living in this place where it is, but when, but when, but when, but when, but when, it's nonsense, man. This is it. These are the good old days. You know, we now look at photos of our kids from two years ago and go, oh, they were so small then. Two years ago, we were looking at photos of them two years before going, oh, they're so small. Look how beautiful they are. You don't see it when you're in it. You can't wait until you've got no stress or worry in your life before you decide to be happy. Cause guess what? You will always have stress and worry and anxiety and problems and issues to deal with. So you have to decide now that happiness is something that you're going to have. You can't wait until you've been hugely successful before you start focusing on charity and giving and caring for other people.

• 0:40Chris Williamson?

  Jake Humphrey, welcome to the show.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  Thanks very much for having me. How are you?

• 0:44Chris Williamson?

  I'm good, man. I'm good. All the way from Austin, Texas back to the UK.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  Lovely. I bet it's a little bit warmer there than it is. It's about three degrees here in Norwich today. And I've been told it's minus five tonight. So I've been doing all the glamour stuff like getting the hose pipes in. Because they're going to freeze and damage and covering the taps with little thermal boxes. So that we don't get a lot of blown outside taps this evening. So it's all glamour here in the English countryside this winter, Chris.

• 1:09Chris Williamson?

  As I'm sure it is. So you ask everyone on your podcast, the same question to start your show. So I'm going to reverse it around. What does high performance mean to you?

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Interestingly, right? High performance means something totally different to me. Now that I've spent two years interviewing people for the High Performance Podcast because I sort of, like I really wanted when I started High Performance for people to get sort of punched between the eyes with a real dawning realisation of how hard you have to work and how much you have to struggle and how sacrifice is key. And how graft is everything to be successful. And that is really what I thought and what I believed. And it's only through the conversations we've had on High Performance that I've, I've realised that all of those things are true. You do have to work hard. There is sacrifice. Consistency is absolutely vital. You have to make sure that passion is central to everything that you do.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  But none of it is worth doing if it doesn't take you to a place of being happier or being more content or feeling.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Like you're in a better headspace and I didn't, I never considered that until I began high performance. I just thought it was sacrifice and struggle and graft. And now I realise it's sacrifice, struggle and graft as long as it makes you happy. And that's actually been a kind of like a good thing for me to understand really, because I think it's important that people don't listen to high performance and come to our podcast. And because it is, the whole point of this podcast is that we get straight in with the questions that matter immediately. There's no floating around the surface. There's no messing around. It's like, right, tell us the secrets, tell us what you've learned, let your lived experience be a lesson for somebody else. And so I'm always wary that that can be quite hard and tough, because

• 2:54Speaker 00

  some people who are high performers do live hard and tough lives. That's how they've got to where they've got to. So I now always caveat it with this is absolutely fine, but it isn't for everyone. And you only need to live this kind of life if it makes you happy. And I think also an understanding, Chris, that high performance doesn't mean being an Olympian, doesn't mean being a billionaire, doesn't mean being a tech entrepreneur, doesn't mean being the best investor in the country. It sort of means finding what your own high performance is. And for some people, that is literally being happier than they were yesterday, or having a better relationship with their kids, or being able to have that conversation with their boss that they've been putting off for the last 12 months. If

• 3:34Speaker 00

  listening to the high performance podcast gets them to that level of high performance, their own version of high performance, then I'm happy.

• 3:42Chris Williamson?

  That sounds a lot more like holistic performance than high performance. It sounds like a much more well-rounded way of viewing what high performance is.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  I think it probably is. But then I think that the more conversations we've had with people, the more that you don't have to have either high performance or holistic performance. You can have holistic high performance. And actually, that is the healthiest high performance to have. Like, it shouldn't just be graft and effort, you know, for, for people listening to this, if they're in the States, they might not know of Jonny Wilkinson, the England rugby player who won the World Cup with England, you know, listeners in Australia and South Africa and the UK will know that name really well. But he said to us when he came on high performance, that he felt that the book that he wrote after winning the World Cup would have created a mental health spike in young men, because it was all about sacrifice everything, back against the wall, graft, grit, determination, struggle,

• 4:33Speaker 00

  failure. That's what you need in your life. And now he realises that all that does is lead to more of the same. And actually now he's a guy who tries to live in flow. He's become really spiritual, the way he talks. It's almost Buddhist like the conversations we have. He's, he's, he's must have studied Buddhism. I think from the conversations we have, he wouldn't be going to the places that he, that he does unless he had. It was such an enlightening conversation. And that's just a reminder, isn't it, that what is it the Stoics say? No man steps in the same river twice because the river's changed and so is the man. It's a reminder that even someone who's got to the top of their chosen game, in his case it was rugby, by having a certain approach can totally, totally change that approach for the rest of their life when they're enlightened.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  And I think I have been enlightened by high performance. I'm a totally different person to the person that started that podcast a couple of years ago.

• 5:24Chris Williamson?

  Just how surprised were you when you sat down with Jonny Wilkinson? Because I've shared that podcast to an awful lot of people saying, this sounds like a man that is very aligned, very awakened. He sounds like someone who's been on a hundred ayahuasca retreats, not somebody that once won the Rugby World Cup.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And think of the bravery it takes to come and talk like that, by the way.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  You know, because a lot of, not just the rugby world, but a lot of the sporting world and a lot of the world still thinks in the way he used to think. And I think that for him to come on and talk as he did is testament, not just to him as a person. But I, I like to think testament to the fact that as a, as a society, I think we're changing and we're listening more than ever. We've still got a lot further to go, but how much of a surprise was it? Chris, mate, that was a surprise. Like, you know how it is, you do an interview with someone, you have your questions, right? I didn't ask a single question on my piece of paper or on my laptop for the whole hour and a half that we sat with him. And I don't, I mean, you've obviously listened to it a few times. I don't think we talked about rugby really at all.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  And to have someone tell you that winning the Rugby World Cup is no more important than doing the washing up. And for me not to be able to understand that even 1%, and for him to then explain, well, if rugby's more important and I'm no longer a rugby player, am I less important? And that both of them is just using your body to achieve a goal. There lies enlightenment for me, absolute education for me, total change of mindset for me. And.

• 6:58Speaker 00

  Like you feel, you feel really honoured, right? When someone sits and talks to you and they say, the biggest thing that I've learned is to be in the present, to be fully engaged in the moment. And I, right now, I'm fully engaged talking to you. I'm not thinking about what happened yesterday because it's gone. I'm not thinking about what happens later because that's just a story. Right now, we're in this room together. We're having a conversation and I'm totally all in and fully engaged. That is like, you realise when you have that conversation with someone, how, how rare it is to have that feeling with someone. We don't live in a world like that anymore. We live in a world where you're talking to people while they're scrolling their Instagram. Or you're chatting to them while they're flicking through Netflix or they're wondering what's for dinner

• 7:40Speaker 00

  or they're asking questions about tomorrow. Like, how often, in all seriousness, Chris, do you feel really totally engaged with somebody?

• 7:48Chris Williamson?

  When I do this, when I do this is, is the most, the most flow state that I find. And I'd say to everybody that listens to the show, if you don't have an outlet where you can have a conversation with someone undistracted for thirty minutes a week, you need to try and find time for that, you know, record a fake podcast.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  We've forgotten it, mate. We've, people don't even understand what you're talking about anymore. When you talk about you in a flow state, having a conversation, we don't even know what that skill is anymore. The art form has gone. Like, I have people saying to me, podcast, I look at your podcast, it's an hour long. Not sure. And I'm like, you can't spare one hour, one hour to listen to someone who is a world-class operator in their chosen field. And by the way, they are happy to sit and tell me everything they've learned and they're going to give it to you for free. So you can improve your mindset and change your life. You can't be fucked to give an hour to that. That's the world we're in now. Fifteen second video, no problem at all. Edited version of my life, put on Instagram to make myself look good and make other people feel bad. No worries. I can do that.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  I can sit and do an hour of Netflix every night, but I haven't got time for, I haven't got time for a podcast. It's, it's math. The world is changing before our eyes and we're kind of like, I actually love how successful and how popular podcasts are because it's almost to me now, it's the final great bastion of actual conversation. Like, I don't have this sort of conversation with anyone in my life. And then I come on here and I talk to you, you're in Texas, I'm in Norwich, we've never even met before. And we're having like a deeper, better conversation than you ever have with anyone when you're in, in the same room with them. Because we've lost the art.

• 9:22Chris Williamson?

  I would say that there's a counterculture coming in my experience, and this might be my selection bias for the people that I'm around. I am around people who hunger for a slower lifestyle. They genuinely want to chop wood, carry water. They want to have indulging conversations where they allow themselves to fully marinate in whatever it is that they're talking about. And I think that over time, as with everything, right, something swings to an extreme of one way and then it swings back. And I do think that the slower media revolution that we're seeing with longer form conversations, I think that that's going to be there. One of the things you mentioned there that was really interesting to do with Jonny Wilkinson is the battle between

• 10:06Chris Williamson?

  high performance and happiness, I think. And there feels like there's a tension that's going on there. Do you think that high performers are more or less happy than most people on average?

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Less happy, I think.

• 10:19Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I think that, and I think that's something that we need to be really overt about and really honest about on the podcast. Let's not sit here and try and pretend that being a high performer is easy because it isn't. But the great thing about the people that join us is that they've been on the journey. They've had the goal oriented approach to life. They've realised when they've got to that goal that actually it doesn't feel as good as they hoped it would. And they didn't enjoy the journey because all they were focusing on was the goal. And now they're happy to come on high performance and tell us that winning Champions Leagues, winning World Cups, managing national teams, managing Premier League football teams, becoming billionaires, becoming some of the best known entertainers on the planet, does not top their

• 11:01Speaker 00

  cup up. It does not fulfil them. What fulfils them is the journey to get to those places. And so I think there is an absolute tension. And you're right, it's a constant tug of war between high performance and happiness.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  But what the people on high performance have learned is how to be high performing, happy people plenty of the time. And the answer has become that they've tried the goal orientated approach, they've realised it doesn't work for them and they've taken on being obsessed with the process. And I think that if there's one huge learning from high performance, it is that if you can live a process driven life, then you'll get to a better place. Like, I have this wooden block always in my study. It says on it, when my camera focuses, you'll see it. Come on camera. There you go. There you go. It found it for a second. Infinite purpose, it says.

• 11:57Chris Williamson?

  Right. What's that mean to you?

• 11:58Speaker 00

  It basically means that I never focus on an outcome. And I did for a long time. So previously, there is. Previously, I would have said my new year's resolution is to get a six pack. Now my new year's resolution is to just be fitter. I would have said my new year's resolution is to turn over three million pounds this year. Now my new year's resolution is to make my business the healthiest and happiest that I can make it. The great thing about infinite purpose is that it's infinite. So the infinite purpose for the high performance podcast is to have engaging and interesting conversations with high achievers that allows our listeners right across the world to reach a high performance life more often. Now, the great thing about that

• 12:43Speaker 00

  is that there is no end to that. It's not, oh, great, I've reached high performance, I'm done. It's it's never ending. And I think infinite purpose is a really powerful tool that people should employ. And I've employed it since since we spoke to Susie Ma. And Susie Ma, she was the first ever runner up who Alan Sugar still invested in from The Apprentice here in the UK. And she's created Tropic Skincare. And she does the whole thing with an infinite purpose. And I think the other great thing about an infinite purpose is that if you have that at the centre of what you're doing, it keeps passion. And it keeps purpose at the heart of why you're doing things. Because, you know, there will be a purpose and a passion for you having these conversations. This isn't just you filling your time. There are plenty of other things you could be doing to fill your time, right?

• 13:24Speaker 00

  But making sure that you live this purpose driven life is so hugely rewarding. It suddenly, it suddenly makes sense. You know, for me, I've done 20 years as a broadcaster. Children's BBC, Formula One, Premier League football, Champions League football. I have never felt as useful as I do now. I never feel, I've never felt like I've had an impact on people's lives as much as now. And I feel like my purpose is to shout as loud and as proud as I can about the power of the High Performance Podcast and the book that we've got coming out in December. Because it impacts people's lives for good. And how can that ever be a bad thing? You know, I want my kids to listen to these episodes when I'm long gone.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  I want my grandkids to read the book and get a real understanding of what I was and what I represented. And I kind of feel lucky because one thing that I'm not is I'm not actually especially eloquent, right? I'm actually relatively simple in the way my brain processes things. But the people that we have on the podcast are so not simple. And their brains work at such an incredible level, like Will Ahmed, the creator and founder of Whoop. Um, there you go, he's wearing his Whoop band. He comes on and talks to us and there was one, one question we asked him and he said, well, I have never really thought about that. So let me try and formulate an answer while I'm thinking. Then he just goes and gives some unbelievably bright and well thought out and well constructed, smart, wonderful answer that I couldn't even get close to.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  So I know my limitations, which is a, a good one on the step to high performance. And I think I are, I can ask decent questions and that's what I love doing. And I just feel for the first time useful. It's a lovely, lovely feeling.

• 15:04Chris Williamson?

  Let's sink one layer deeper into this tension between happiness and high performance.

• 15:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:09Chris Williamson?

  What you brought up there is that people who have achieved championship or accolade or success within a variety of domains come to you and then they say, do you know what it is? Jake, we, I, I thought that the top of the mountain was where I wanted to be and I wasn't.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:26Chris Williamson?

  Is there not a little bit of a situation here where it's like a rich person telling a poor person not to worry about money because it's not going to make you happy? There's a quote from Naval Ravikant that says, "It is far easier to achieve your material desires than to renounce them." And what he's saying there is that open loops of unfulfilled degrees of success can torment us so much that it's simply easier to do what we need to do. I'm wondering whether there's a level of survivorship bias amongst the high performers that have made it to where they are and then they can post rationalize about the journey that got them there in any case.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  I think that they're still on the journey. I think that's the key thing. I actually see it differently. I see that they thought that getting to the top of the mountain was where they needed to be and actually they're educated enough to realize it's different. Like I can remember, and this is kind of weird, right? Because it's just a weird thing to do. I remember having an old mobile phone right at the beginning of the mobile phone era. And I remember going to nightclubs in Norwich and I'd just started out on the television and I was working for like a local TV channel. And I was so utterly desperate, right? To walk into a nightclub and for people to recognize me and go, "Oh my God, that's the guy from the TV, amazing." And I had this, such an inbuilt desire to be successful. And I used to stand there at the bar and all my mates are having a great time and having a laugh and having drinks.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  And I was just a ball of frustration because this desire just to make it onto the TV hadn't happened. And I remember going to the toilet in one of the nightclubs and I went into the toilet and the people locked the door, got my mobile phone and I just banged on the numbers like that, really random whacking all these numbers. And I looked at it and I thought every time I look at those numbers, it's going to remind me of how shit I feel right now because I haven't made it to where I want to get to. And only when I get on the television can I stop looking at these numbers and realize that I've got where I want to be. Of course, I then end up on the television. Only a year later, the show that I was working on got commissioned for ITV. Well, when I banged all those numbers into that nightclub in Norwich in the fit of frustration,

• 17:26Speaker 00

  like you think, great, you've done it now. You no longer have to be frustrated. You no longer have to bang the mobile phone. You no longer have to work and put the effort in and the graft. But no, because the way that our mind works is that we immediately go on to the next thing. So it is absolutely foolish to have an ambition to get to a certain place and to conquer a mountain. It's like, you think of someone you buy, like a car or a watch or a pair of awesome trainers or a lovely new bit of tech. For the first few days, you're looking at that thinking, I bloody love that mobile phone or those trainers are the ones I've wanted for years or I've dreamt of buying that car for so long. I now have got it. Promise you, man, six months later, you don't think about those trainers. You don't care about the car you've bought because you've had it for the last six months. You might get a nice feeling sometimes when you get in it, but you're thinking, they've brought out a new model.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  Think I like the new model. Well, I could have got the more powerful engine. Why didn't I get the sport model? I've just seen another version of this car and they've got the 20 inch alloy wheels. Shit, why didn't I get those? That's the way our brains work. So it's foolish to sit here and say to people, focus on the outcome. Oh, by the way, um, I have focused on the outcome and I can tell you it's no good. There's no point then sitting here and telling people to do what they've done and realise that there's no joy at the end of it. That's not to say that like winning all those things and doing all those brilliant things. Of course it gives them the thrill. Of course it's wonderful. And of course they're constantly trying to recreate the high that they got from that. But I would never want my kids to live a life of going for the goal.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  It has to be, it has to be about the process. I can't explain to them clearly enough that even if they really, even if you love the goal, even if you get to the goal and it is everything you've ever dreamed of, even if you do stand on the top of the mountain and go, oh my God, I've done it. Amazing. Why can't you still love the process? Why can't you still be totally, totally immersed and engaged with the process? Because that's your parachute, because you might get to the mountain and it might be shit. So then it's a good job you had the parachute packed and you enjoyed the process. If you get to the mountain and it's amazing and it feels better than you ever could have imagined, that's a bonus. That's just another additional layer of joy. So I do see it differently. I, I do. I don't believe that.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  A goal orientated mindset is ever the answer. I think that focus on the process and you will get to your goals anyway. You'll get there because focusing on the process is the very thing that is going to take you there. Focus on the outcome is the very thing that takes you away from the process. And that's the very worst thing you can do because the process is the answer.

• 19:59Chris Williamson?

  I agree. I think one of the reasons that many high performers are addicted to the outcome is that feelings of insufficiency are very motivating. If you believe that I will be whole when I complete, I achieve, I am, then it motivates you to do more. Eddie Hall is the best example of this, where he said that he would have been, uh, single with no relationship to his child and probably dead if he hadn't won the world's strongest man, the year that he had done because his marriage was on the rocks because of how much he was training, had no relationship with his kid. And he was on the verge of being incredibly unhealthy at six foot three, 200 and something kilos. Now, from the outside looking in, we see this glory and we see Eddie Hall, world's strongest man, amazing accolade, put it on a pedestal.

• 20:43Chris Williamson?

  What you don't see is the price that Eddie Hall had to pay for that. And that was a feeling of insufficiency. And I think that what you're trying to do, what it seems like you're trying to do is shortcut people's belief that this feeling of insufficiency is the only way to get motivation. That motivation can come from a place of enoughness. It can come from a place of desire, of growth, of wanting to be as good as you can, but not because that's going to fill a hole in yourself, this void that isn't being enough.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  The hole will still be there and it will still be just as big if the hole is there. Um, we had Hector Bayer in, the Arsenal player, come on our podcast. Did you see the episodes? Did you listen to it?

• 21:17Chris Williamson?

  No, not that one.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  So brilliant. He came on and he said, um, he said, life, life is like a candle. He said, you, um, you have to live like a candle. Said me as a footballer, when I'm in the first team and I'm playing well, then I'm scoring goals and I'm getting man of the match awards and all my mates are ringing me up and we're going clubbing. You can allow the flame to grow and grow and grow because everything's great. And then you get dropped and then the manager doesn't talk to you and then your teammates shun you a bit because they're focused on the players that are in the team and the nightclubs you've been going to don't call anymore to ask you to come and have a table and your mates that loved hanging out with you because you're playing first team football every week don't ring anymore. And the candle gets dim and dim and dim. You're saying you have to live a candle. You have to make the decision that your flame is your flame.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  And you're totally steady with your flame. So it doesn't matter what happens around you because the only thing that can make the decision for the size of your flame is your opinion of yourself. And if you have a low opinion of yourself, I promise you, when you get to the goal at the end, you will still have the low opinion of yourself. And if you don't get to the goal at the end, you'll have an even lower opinion of yourself, which makes being goal oriented even more dangerous and even more risky. And I look at people all the time and I think all of you are living in this place where it is, but when, but when, but when, but when, but when, it's nonsense, man. This is it. These are the good old days. You know, we now look at photos of our kids from two years ago and go, oh, they were so small then.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Two years ago, we were looking at photos of them two years before going, oh, they're so small. Look how beautiful they are. You don't see it when you're in it. You can't wait until you've got no stress or worry in your life before you decide to be happy because guess what? You will always have stress and worry and anxiety and problems and issues to deal with. So you have to decide now that happiness is something that you're going to have. You can't wait until you've been hugely successful before you start focusing on charity and giving and caring for other people. Because that moment might never arrive. And actually, the giving and the caring and the loving and the empathy is going to get you closer to a feeling of happiness anyway. And the happier you are, the more successful your life is. Like, there's no question about that. Happiness is a form of success. And I see all around me, people who are telling me they're going to do this

• 23:20Speaker 00

  when this happens. And they were telling me the same thing five years ago, five years before that. And they're still going to the same parties and the same pubs in the same job, with the same friends, eating the same food. But they're still wishing they had a different house and a different body and a different circle of mates and a different social life.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  But they're waiting for something and I don't know what they're waiting for. But we have to evolve. You have to explore all the time. Exploration is the key for all of these high performance conversations that we have. You really have to break your life down into all the little components and say, what is exactly the same here as it was two or three years ago? And is that a good thing for me? Like you, you're in Austin, Texas, right? Because you're exploring. It's a place you've gone to literally to explore, to explore yourself, to explore your career, to explore your mindset, explore your body. Exploration is the answer.

• 24:13Chris Williamson?

  I'm interested in how people don't identify with their mistakes, how they can do something, have a setback. You talked about the flame starting to flicker away, you get dropped, you try something, you know, maybe somebody wants to make these changes, they want to try and get lean next year, they want to take care of their health or their family or whatever it is, but they encounter some problems. Or at the absolute peak of the sport, somebody fails on the biggest stage. What have you found from speaking to these guys about dealing with mistakes and not identifying with them and not having them as huge setbacks?

• 24:46Speaker 00

  It comes down to taking responsibility, Chris, basically. I mean, a lot of the high performers that join us take on what they call 100% responsibility. And it's a powerful one, and it's a tool worth investigating. And basically, you can do it over a day, a couple of days, maybe a week, and you take 100% responsibility. And you take responsibility for your colleagues that aren't good enough at work. Well, you take responsibility for why that person isn't pulling their weight. You might have a difficult relationship with your partner or your children. Instead of looking at it and saying, I wish they would talk themselves out, you take responsibility for why that relationship isn't where you would like it to be. And taking responsibility gives you power. Giving away responsibility

• 25:30Speaker 00

  gives away control. And if you give away control, you're giving away the opportunity to solve the problems that are lying in front of you. So high achievers take 100% responsibility, but they take 100% responsibility especially for the setbacks. And I think what I want people to understand, because I always know when someone doesn't really listen to high performance, because they say, oh, yeah, but it's just people talking about why they're successful and how great they are and how the lessons they've learned along the way. I'm not interested in that because that's not actually how life works. I may always say to them, listen, successful people fail way more often than anybody else. Successful people fail all the time. I mean, I can see when you lift your arms up, Chris, right, your guns are pretty big. Why are your guns big? I'll tell you why your guns are big.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Because for years and years and years, you've lifted until failure, right? Lift till failure, lift until you can't lift anymore because guess what happens next time you go in the gym, you lift heavier and you lift longer because the failure is where the growth is. You need to allow that failure into your life. You need to fail often. You need to be in that window where failure is almost inevitable. But crucially, you have to fail forwards. You have to seek the failure. You have to want the failure. You have to completely change your brain to understand that when you talk about a footballer in training, taking hundreds of free kicks, it's not training, it's failing. He's failing free kick after free kick after free kick. So when the game starts, he scores that free kick and that's exactly the way that life works. Excuse me. You have to fail to have

• 26:57Speaker 00

  the successes and successful people turn failure into a positive life. If I look back at my own life, I was bullied at school, at one of my high schools. I had to move schools in the end. Like, that's a difficult thing to go through at the time. And then I got a job at McDonald's and I was told I had no communication skills. So I was fired, fired from McDonald's, by the way. That's a hard thing to take. And then about six months after that, while I was doing my A levels, my grandma sadly committed suicide. That's a very difficult thing to accept mentally when you're a young guy because like grandparents don't do that. Do you know what I mean? They're the ones that are always happy. They're the ones that have made it in life. They're, they're at the other end. They're just chilling.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  So that was hard. Then I failed my A levels. That was really difficult. And then I went to London and I went through quite a tricky mental health period just for about six months where life just felt overwhelming. And I went and saw someone and they just said to me, you just have to accept that you're going to have periods in your life where you have kind of difficult intrusive thoughts. It's really common for young men. That's why suicide rates are so high for young men because they don't come and talk about it. They just think there's something wrong with them and they go and do the unthinkable. So all those moments in my life are reminders to me. But what is hard for me, isn't necessarily bad for me. And what I might have seen at the time as a full stop was just a coma. And I want people to understand that. You know, there would constantly be struggle and failure

• 28:23Speaker 00

  and setback and knockback and potholes that you'd stumble and trip into.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  But it is absolutely how you react to those. They're only negatives if you choose for them to be a negative. And it's a really hard thing to hear, but I honestly believe that happiness is a choice.

• 28:39Chris Williamson?

  Do you still have?

• 28:40Speaker 00

  No matter what happens.

• 28:42Chris Williamson?

  Do you still have a chip on your shoulder about some of those things from your childhood?

• 28:46Speaker 00

  No, no, I like, I might have done at the time, but that what's the, what is the benefit to that? I mean, that having a chip on your shoulder, I think is like, like, well, how does the old phrase go, drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die? That's what it's, you know, having any, carrying any sort of negativity for those things that happened. I mean,

• 29:08Chris Williamson?

  So I, I understand. I mean, that's a perfectly rational, very, very admirable way to have it in your mind. But that's not the situation that most people get themselves to, certainly not naturally.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. So why don't I feel like that? Um?

• 29:23Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  I think.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  I think that I've just reached, I mean, I'm 43, right? I've reached a point in my life where I'm more stable than ever before. I'm happier than ever before. I think I almost feel like someone's opened a door and said, have a look through there. That's enlightenment right there. That's the truth. That's what everyone would love to see. You've seen it now. Now shut the door and go and tell people about it. That's honestly what I feel. And it might sound ridiculous and a bit trite, but when you, when you do see that enlightenment and all of those answers that happiness is a choice and bad things will happen, but you need to understand the difference between fault and responsibility. Loads of things will happen to you that are not your fault, but they're still your responsibility.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  And when you realise that, you realise that you're only going to get one shot at this. There's no point spending any time worrying about the people that bullied me over 20 years ago because they don't care whether I'm worried about them. There's no point carrying any frustration with my grandma that she didn't talk to us and and share her fears because, um.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  She isn't here anymore and all we should really be doing is thinking of the good times we had together. There's no point worrying about the person that fired me from McDonald's for a lack of communication skills because I didn't want to work at McDonald's anyway for my whole life. There's no frustration I failed my A levels because going back to school to redo my A levels was the thing that got me into television because the very day that I returned to school, my politics teacher had a letter in his hand from a local TV channel. Well, if that isn't a message from somewhere telling you to realise that the bad stuff is also the good stuff, I don't know what is. And I certainly don't have any issues anymore about the fact that I went through some struggles with my mental health because I look at that as something that I was allowed to experience so that if my little boy Sebastian ever has a similar thing, I can say, listen, son, can I just,

• 31:22Speaker 00

  and I will, when he's 15, 16, I am going to sit him down and say, listen, I'm going to tell you exactly what went through your dad's mind when I was 21 and how scary it was. And that actually it was my brain playing a trick. Because your brain is going to play tricks all your life. Looking into the future, Seb is just writing stories. And I was writing negative stories and then choosing to believe them. And guess what? Millions of people do that every minute of every day. You've got the choice, mate, to write really good stories and then chase them down. And that will be my advice to him.

• 31:51Chris Williamson?

  I really wish that we could gift other people and ourselves the perspective, that broad perspective that you have. You know, when you look back on a memory and you see it in the wider context of things, you see it with this real equanimity. You understand why it was there. You understand why it occurred. You see how you dealt with it. But you're not, you're not viscerally caught up. You're not swept away in the phenomenological experience of it. And man, like, I really, really wish, if you could gift people that, you know, you have a friend that's going through something and they're really, really suffering. And you want to, you want to tell them, look, dude, just, just hold on, get through it day by day, you're going to be fine.

• 32:33Chris Williamson?

  Your ability to look back on all of these situations in the broader context as a part of the narrative to create this person that you've become today, I just, that would be, if you were able to do that, and you were able to give someone that perspective while they were suffering, while they were going through some challenges, that would be one hell of a, one hell of a miracle.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're totally right. But part of getting to here is going through that, isn't it? And that's the difficult thing. And, and that's where it's a real challenge, because I look at my kids, and I wouldn't wish any of those things on them. But I do want them to struggle. I absolutely do want my kids to struggle. I want my kids to fail. I spend my life seeing these helicopter parents, yeah, hovering around their kids all the time. Don't walk in there. Don't touch that. Don't trip there. I mean, the phrase, be careful. Oh, I hate it. Be careful. Okay, where are you going? All right, well, be careful. Why be careful? Why be careful? Okay, be joyful. Okay, be full of fun. Be carefree. Be happy. That's what we should be saying to our kids. Be careful. Oh, horrible. Because

• 33:36Speaker 00

  what happens is, we smooth the path in front of our children. Oh, there's a problem with the teacher. I'll go speak to the teacher. I'm not getting on with this kid in class. I'll speak to their parents. Oh, I've got this happening at school. Sit down, let me give you all the answers and help you. Smooth the path, smooth the path, smooth the path. No resilience gets built. They get to 21, they get told at their first job interview, they haven't got the job. Crash and burn. Crash and burn, because they haven't got the resilience. If you were to ask me the single biggest trait that high performers have from the conversations on our podcast, Chris, resilience. Absolutely without question, they have resilience. And we have to find a way of instilling resilience in people.

• 34:15Chris Williamson?

  What does resilience mean to you?

• 34:17Speaker 00

  The ability to just push on through. The ability to realise that what is now is not forever. That all things pass, and all things change. Nothing is permanent. And everything is a lesson. Everything is part of learning. And the biggest resilience lesson for me is that I'm in control of it. You are absolutely in control. And people hate that when you talk about happiness being a choice. People really struggle with it. Because all this shit things happen to me. Why, how can happiness be a choice? I can't choose to be happy in the midst of all this. Well, you can. You can choose to be happy. The way that you react to something is entirely on you. You know, you, me and you, right, have a row on, on this conversation this evening. Yeah.

• 35:01Speaker 00

  That's the thing that's happened. If in two days' time, you and me are still dwelling on it, or texting each other going, yeah, you've really pissed me off. That's not the thing that happened. That's our reaction to the thing that happened. And that's the bit that we can control. And once you realise that you can control your response and reaction to everything that happens in your life, then you're totally bulletproof. And when you're totally bulletproof, you're in flow and you're living with a real sense of freedom.

• 35:29Chris Williamson?

  You've spoken to a lot of athletes that have performed under extreme pressure, and obviously there's a lot of emotions flowing through their systems there. What are some of the lessons that you've got about coping with pressure and managing emotions like that?

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Well, again, it comes back to control. It's very interesting that all of the athletes that we speak to, I mean, there's a great phrase that trauma leads to triumph. And we have had conversations with high performer after high performer, where when we talk about their success, they almost instantaneously relate it back to a struggle or a trial that they went through. And I don't think there's a coincidence there because I think that the challenges that they faced years before, although they may seem far greater than standing on a diving board or standing on a running track or lining up to kick off a football match. It's those struggles and those challenges that they faced, far greater than this one, that have equipped them for dealing with this much smaller challenge that lies in front of them on that day.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  And it brings us back to the same conversation that we hear lots of people use, pressure being a privilege. These people understand that pressure is a privilege and they are wired in a way that they chase it and they want it and they enjoy it and they savour it.

• 36:43Chris Williamson?

  What's a lesson that's had the biggest impact on your performance, do you think?

• 36:54Speaker 00

  It's a really, it's a really good question. Because I take little snippets of everyone that's joined us on High Performance, but I think, I think the person that put it best to us was Matthew McConaughey when he joined us on the podcast. And he spoke about his mum telling him, just keep on going, just keep on going. And he said to us, but mum, if I keep running around a running track and every time I run around a running track, I step in dog mess on exactly the same corner every single time. And you say, just go again, just go again, just go again. I'm not learning the lessons. So yeah, I'll just go again, but I'll go again with the slight learning that I've taken from that. But what I won't do is stop running, I'll keep on going. And I think that that's the biggest learning for me from the conversations we've had on

• 37:37Speaker 00

  High Performance is that you're constantly learning, constantly adapting, constantly evolving. You and I are different people to the people that started this conversation an hour ago, right? But we're still heading in the same direction, just with a very slight tilt, because I'm learning from you, you're learning from me, we're adapting, we're evolving. And I guess I, I used to be too fixed in my mindset. This was what I wanted to achieve, this was how I was going to achieve it. And these were all the bullet points to get myself to that place. Now I'm way more flexible in my thinking and my approach. And I think in this world, we need to be totally flexible.

• 38:13Chris Williamson?

  Who do you think surprised you the most of all of the guys you've spoken to?

• 38:16Speaker 00

  Jonny Wilkinson, no, there's no question.

• 38:18Chris Williamson?

  Really?

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Same with you, I imagine. Yeah. I was like, this is not the conversation I was expecting. I mean, people have come up with amazing things, but Jonny Wilkinson is the one that surprised me the most. The greatest bulletproof mindset of everyone that's joined us was the explorer Nims Perja. And you know how I talk on here about happiness being a choice and fault versus responsibility and realising that what's not your fault is still your responsibility? Nims gave us the single most amazing example of that. When he was looking to break the world record for climbing the world's highest mountains. And he comes out of his tent in the morning and someone's stolen his oxygen.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  And he's like, he said to us, he said, when you're climbing mountains and you're in the death zone and you're making an attempt on the summit, taking someone's oxygen is a crime. It's, it's like murder. Yeah. Because taking that oxygen is taking away the one thing that's guaranteed to keep them alive.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  What do you do in that situation? You go back down the mountain because you haven't got enough oxygen to get to the top. Or you totally reframe your thinking and you say, right, I'm going to summit, I'm going to summit quicker because I've only got one bottle of oxygen rather than two. However, I'm really pleased that someone stole my oxygen.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  That was his mindset. Why was he pleased? Because he wrote a story in his head that while he was asleep at night, someone on the mountain had a medical emergency. And the only way to save that person's life was to get them some additional oxygen. And the oxygen was found outside his tent and that oxygen was taken to that person. That person's life was saved thanks to Nim's oxygen. So not only has his oxygen saved someone else's life, but he's also going to take control and summit the mountain with one bottle of oxygen. And he went to the top of the mountain and he summited and he came back down. Now, that is the absolute prime example to me of someone taking responsibility, taking control for their own mindset. Of course, someone didn't take his oxygen because it was saving someone's life.

• 40:20Speaker 00

  The chances of that is so slim, but what's the point in him thinking otherwise? Why not take immediate control of the situation? Play it to your favor. We should be doing that all day, every day, every little situation that unfolds and arises in our lives.

• 40:36Chris Williamson?

  Nim's is built different. He was on the show talking about his, what was it, Becoming Impossible? What was his book? And, uh, man, that guy is, what I think so beautiful about about him and a lot of the other people that you speak to on the show as well, is this blend of savagery with presence. It's the fact that they're able to switch on this absolute extreme level of performance and aggression. Nim's, I didn't understand where the word trailblazing came from, that when you're climbing up a mountain and you're going through snow, the person at the front essentially acts as a plow. And if you're waist deep or chest deep in snow, the person at the front isn't just walking, they're also sort of pushing out of the way.

• 41:20Chris Williamson?

  And the way that they walk is this sort of, they shuffle forward, they lean their body in, then they shuffle, they lean their body in. And Nim said he always wanted to be the trailblazer, but I mean, Part of me thinks that the guy's a masochist that just loves suffering and that may, a little bit of that may be true, but the other part of it is that he just wants to be the person that's leading from the front. And that, as you say, you know, for high performance, that's, that's gold.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was amazing. He, I embarrassed myself at one point by standing up with my arms in the air, just shouting, "You're so inspirational!" Like, I just want to go for a beer with him, don't you?

• 42:00Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, he's a great guy. One of the things that I find quite interesting, we're talking a lot about theory here, and we've got some of the lessons out of that, but moving from theory to action is the most important part. So give me some of the daily practices that you've built to instantiate these lessons.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  I always think when it comes to this moment, right, we have to be really honest, okay? Because I hear lots of people talking on podcasts and other places where they set unrealistic challenges for people like you and I to live with. So I would love to say, I wake up every morning, 20 minutes of meditation, lemon sliced into warm water, make sure I get eight hours of sleep every night, make a diary of my plan for the day, have a gratitude journal at the end of the day that I write in. I don't do any of that, Chris, right? I don't do any of that. I get out of bed knackered because I work too much and the kids come in our bed at night and Sebastian's like legs smashing to my face. He's six years old and Florence wakes up grumpy most of the time and then we struggle to get out

• 43:04Speaker 00

  of the house on time because we're doing the school run. And then I feel like I have a production company in London. We've got 200 staff. I feel a real responsibility for looking out for them and making sure that business is driving forwards. I've got my TV presenting work. I've got the podcast staff. I've got all kinds of little bits rolling around. We've got some building work going on at home at the moment. I've got family and friends that I feel don't see enough of me and they let me know about that on a pretty regular basis and I don't get into the gym as often as I would like and I snack too much in the evenings, which gives me belly fat, which frustrates me. All of that, right, is the truth, okay? But among all of that, I'm absolutely.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Happy and calm and centered and relaxed with it all because high performance is not about chasing perfection. And I really need to make that clear because I think that we set unattainable goals for people. You know, you watch a James Bond film and you wanna be James Bond. Hey guys, he's a fictional bloody character. Okay, you cannot kill five hundred men armed with Uzis with one single handgun and a karate chop. Okay, that's not the way the world works. But from the high performance conversations, the first thing that I am is constantly optimistic. Everything can be a good thing. No matter whether at the time it feels like a difficult thing, it can be a good thing.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  I'm an obsessive list writer. I think it's really important to write down all the things that, and I don't write lists of jobs I've got to do. I write down a list of things that I'm finding frustrating at the moment. Um, because one of the things that I really like is not taking specific action to solve those things. But I believe that by writing those things down and just knowing what they are, then the universe is gonna do its bit and solve those and I could look at everything on the list of the last five years. Everything has solved itself. And I think it's because almost subconsciously you do the things that you need to do to solve those problems and to get there. So I'm an obsessive list writer. I'm an absolute firm believer in not letting the shitty little things in life get you down.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  If something doesn't matter in five years, don't worry about it for five seconds. You stub your toe, you get a parking ticket, you lose your wallet, you spill some food down your front at a dinner. You're late for a meeting. There's no point worrying about any of those things because I tell you in five years, nobody will even remember they ever happened and you're wasting your time and you're wasting your energy. And then living in the, living in the now, like being totally connected to you here. In five minutes' time, I'll go and then have dinner with my kids and that is total connection to them. No mobile phones, no conversation or no thought process about what's happening later or what happened yesterday or what comes next. That is just totally invested in them. My big non-negotiable is that no matter where I am in the UK, no matter what I'm working on, I come home.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  I make sure I come home and I one hundred percent do the school run. So you can hear my voice doesn't sound great. I've had three hours sleep the last two nights because I was working on the Champions League and we live a couple of hours out of London. So by the time I get home, it's two o'clock in the morning and, um, and the kids wake up sometime before six AM. Um. So that has its challenges, but that's the way I want to live because I want to be present for my kids, you know, in years to come. I don't want someone to say, man, I listened to your dad's podcast and I read his books. What was he like as a dad? And for them to say, didn't really see him. I want all the things that I talk about and write about and believe in for them to get the real genuine experience of that. Not the words aren't good enough. They have to feel it from me every single day. Um, and just learning, learning all the time to

• 46:36Speaker 00

  remember to be grateful for all the things in my life. And sometimes I just get that moment where a huge smile comes across my face. And I just think I just, it's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous, my life and the things that are going on and the things that I'm doing. And actually, lots of people should feel the same. But lots of people don't feel the same. They don't practise gratitude and gratitude, I think, is like a muscle. I do think you have to work at it. I do think you have to exercise it. Um, and then it comes naturally. My tip for that, for anyone that, um, struggles with that, it really starts with self-talk. It starts with being positive. So every time a negative thought comes into your head, stop that negative thought and just replace it instantly with five good things. Just five things that are great. And

• 47:18Speaker 00

  they don't have to be massive things. So I don't know, if I, if I come out of here and I think to myself, bloody hell, I've been really busy today. I haven't really spoken to Harry yet much. It's really important at that moment to come up with five things that have been really good today. But we woke up together this morning and I made her a cup of tea and we did the school run together and she had a headache earlier when I got her some tablets and made her some water. And it's still only seven o'clock in the evening, so we're still going to get the whole evening together. And the great thing is I've recognised it. So tomorrow I can be extra present and extra good. Those are the five things to counteract that one negative thing. That kind of mindset is there for everybody. And, um, that's a long-winded way of saying that I've picked up a few tips from people on high performance, but I'm far from perfect.

• 48:00Chris Williamson?

  I think that the post-high-performance, high-performance, or the holistic high-performance that we've come up with, I think that that really is going to be over the next few years where a huge movement for people goes. The hustle and grind until your eyes bleed world is long gone. And very quickly, people realize that, as you said, if it's not in the purpose of making you happy, what are you doing? Why are you pursuing this thing? If you sacrifice so much of yourself on the route to success that it makes the success pointless, the destination is literally worthless.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. And by the way, Chris, I want to be a husk of a man by the time I'm done. Like, I want to just push every single little sinew to live the life that I want, right? But I want to do it with happiness and with gratitude and with a full heart and because it makes me happy. Do you know what I mean by that?

• 48:58Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Well, so one of the problems that you have is that people can sacrifice themselves, right? They can burn themselves to a crisp. The candle can go at both ends, but they can do that in service of something that they end up finding wasn't worthwhile.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:11Chris Williamson?

  So I think the important thing, I really want to make sure that people take away from this, is that what you've done, you are prepared to go all in on a number of different pursuits, but you have made the decision, you've done the self-work, you've decided, these are the non-negotiables that I want to care about in my life. It sounds like family presenting, podcasts and serving the wider community, the production company leaving a legacy, you know, something like that, right? You're prepared to completely eviscerate yourself in service of that. But the reason that you can do that and feel whole and feel like you're coming at that from a holistic, high-performance place is that you know that those things are what you genuinely want to achieve.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  You've absolutely nailed it, by the way. You've read, you've read the room. Completely right. That's totally right. I want to be, I want to be drained and done by the end, right? I want to leave nothing on the table. But you're totally right. I want to do it all in pursuit of things that I genuinely care about. Because I think that that's where real freedom is. Real freedom is in being able to really do the things that you want to do. But I do believe that when you found the things that you really want to do, you need to consistently be all in, as long as they make you happy. Yeah.

• 50:30Chris Williamson?

  I love it. Jake Humphries, ladies and gentlemen. People want to check out the book, where should they go?

• 50:36Speaker 00

  Go to thehighperformancepodcast.com. You can order the book there. You can get tickets to our UK tour in 2022. You can join our members' club, the High Performance Circle. You can get loads more access to brilliant guests and speakers and thinkers who've got far more eloquent things to say than me. It's just my honour really to curate it and try and bring it all together to people.

• 50:58Chris Williamson?

  I love what you're doing, Jake. I hope you keep going.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Mate, I really appreciate it. Thanks very much for your time.