Moment 10 - Jake Humphrey On The Building Blocks Of Success

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. In this clip, Jake Humphrey explains that understanding the ‘building blocks’ to success is what truly made him successful. He claims the ‘trick’ is to take absolute responsibility for everything in your life. Jake then tells us that now that he has his success, it feels somewhat underwhelming and anticlimactic as he reveals that he doesn’t yet ‘feel’ successful. Episode 50 - https://g2ul0.app.link/UiRJCV4k8gb Jake: https://www.instagram.com/jakehumphrey/ https://twitter.com/mrjakehumphrey 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.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  What's the, what are the biggest misconceptions about you?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  That I'm just sort of lucky to be where I am. Like, I don't really, I believe in fate and I think I was really fortunate to get that first opportunity to go to Rapture TV and start my broadcasting career. But I don't think that luck has really played a part in getting me to this point now. You know, I think I've sort of worked out the building blocks to success and I think that anyone can do it. I think anyone listening to this podcast and who, and obviously they are the kind of people that are minded towards success anyway, because they listen to this. And this is what this, for me anyway, this is what your podcast is all about. I listen to it all the time.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  I think it's about success, no matter what you talk about. For me, it's about success. And I think that, um, I honestly believe that anyone, anyone can get their hands on success.

• 0:55Steven Bartlett?

  Why is it that some people don't become successful? Some normal people like you that went, you know, were crap in school. Why is it that those people that therefore don't become successful? And why Jake Humphries, who also was a very normal kid in school, went on to become successful? That's really the point I'm trying to get to is, is what's the, the, is it a mindset difference? Is it?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  I think we have to be really careful, right? When we talk about this, because I think we both have been successful. But that doesn't mean that just because it's happened to us, then, then, um, it's something that's really simple and, and it can be achieved by anybody. It's almost like just because I'm just, we think it's the same rule for everybody else. I, I don't think that, I don't think that success comes from expecting it to arrive. I think that you can be successful if you know the, the trick to being successful. Does that make sense? And I think the trick, personally, I think the trick to being successful is an absolute rock solid responsibility

• 1:59Speaker 01

  for every single miniscule part of your life. And I sometimes really struggle to explain this point to people. And I mean, total responsibility, total 100% responsibility for absolutely everything, even things that are not your responsibility. Because I don't see any benefit with putting the blame for any part of your life onto anybody else, because it's not other people's job to sort that life out, right? It's only yours. So there might be, let's take you as a prime example, right? Um.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Maybe it kind of was your fault, but let's say when you left university, right? It wasn't your fault, yeah. It's still your responsibility to deal with that.

• 2:39Steven Bartlett?

  Of course.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  What about all the times when you were trying to get success and you were in your late teens, early twenties? And you, you didn't manage it, right?

• 2:46Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Not necessarily your fault, but still your responsibility to keep going to the next thing.

• 2:50Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Um. And then when things do start going well. It might not be your fault that they've gone well, it might just be that the time was right. But then again, it's your responsibility to take control of that. And I just think if people can get into a mindset where absolutely everything is totally on them and on nobody else. It's almost like a door was open and I thought, oh my goodness, that's, that's the thing. I have to take responsibility for everything. And as soon as I do that.

• 3:15Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Then it leaves no excuses.

• 3:17Steven Bartlett?

  And how you were raised, it plays a huge, huge role. Cause I, now you've said that, I, I was in my head, I was thinking about how much I was raised with that. Almost accidentally, the fact that when I'd wake up in the morning, my parents weren't there. And when I went to sleep at night, they still were at work.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:30Steven Bartlett?

  Every day for about seven, eight years from the age of ten to eighteen. And, and I was explaining on a podcast yesterday that, um, made this connection in my mind that if I was going to have anything, it was me that was going to do it. Even my packed lunch in the morning. And so I went off into the world with this mindset that because my parents created this massive void. That everything I was going to get was on me. I wasn't going to get Christmas or birthdays. I wasn't going to get two pounds in the morning for, for lunch.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  It was your responsibility.

• 3:55Steven Bartlett?

  It was my responsibility to feed myself and, and actually for me, that was really liberating. Because it made, it made the whole world attainable to me in a weird way. When you believe that, you know, Santa Claus is going to show up and, and present things into the Christmas tree.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  When did that moment come though? When did you, when did?

• 4:10Steven Bartlett?

  Fourteen years old, I think I really.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:12Steven Bartlett?

  I remember I went off to London to do the junior apprentice for the BBC. And my parents didn't know I'd left the house. And I was there for a day and a half and I was fourteen.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  See, this is where you were so different to me though. Cause at fourteen years of age, I was still watching cartoons that were probably good for eight year olds. You know, I was not a smart, worldly wise kid at fourteen who would have taken myself to London to go on the apprentice and try and be on there. I, I was a really like super late developer, but I think what I had, similar to you, was not just a genuine sort of work ethic from my parents.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  But genuine, rock solid foundations to start my life from. And it's hard to even say exactly what they are. But we talk about in my family about giving your kids roots and wings.

• 5:00Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  And it's about getting that balance right with giving your kids roots so they know that whenever there is a problem. I mean, I often say to my kids, whatever, and they're only little, they're four and seven, but one of the phrases I like to sort of instill in them is, listen, I'll always leave a light on. In other words, wherever you go, whatever life does for you, however far away you are from home, there's a light on here and you you'll get back here if you look for that and you and you come and find it. And I had that from my parents at a really young age, that feeling that I've got my roots here.

• 5:29Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  And I think once you've got that, then then it's possible to extend your wings and to go, right, I I reckon I'm brave enough. Cause it's quite tentative little steps when you're in your teens, right? I'm brave enough to go to London and do an apprentice audition, cause.

• 5:42Steven Bartlett?

  I can go.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  I know I can come home and now I've got my roots there. I know there's a light on for me.

• 5:46Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  And that's, I think that's absolutely vital.

• 5:48Steven Bartlett?

  Do you feel successful?

• 5:50Speaker 01

  No, not really.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Um, I don't feel successful. And this is something that I try and explain to a lot of people. You know, when you say, what do people think of you? And I say, oh, I think they probably think I'm smug or whatever. I think that people assume that if you've done the things that I've done or the things that you've done, that it feels different, right? I feel like the same kid that grew up in Stoke Holy Cross, a little village on the outskirts of Norwich. I feel no different. I haven't had a buzz as exciting as when in nineteen, mm, two thousand and one, I bought an MGF sports car.

• 6:24Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  I paid nine thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds for it and I bought it from an old man in a in Colchester. And I remember him still to this day, turning on the light switch in his garage and the light thing flicking on. And there's this green MG car. I was on children's BBC at the time and it was the first thing I'd ever really bought for myself. Despite everything that's happened since, I've never had that feeling of, wow, that is a real sense of achievement.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  And it's almost like the longer it goes on, it's almost goes the other way. Have you, have you ever seen Hamilton in the West End?

• 6:54Steven Bartlett?

  Ah, three times.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  I've seen it twice. It's the greatest music I've ever, and you know the song, There's A Million Things I Haven't Done?

• 7:00Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  It's almost like the more I do, and the more I see, the more I realise what I haven't achieved. So I was watching Miss Americana the other day on Netflix, and I, and I think my wife was watching it thinking, oh, this is great, this is nice. And I'm watching it thinking, shit, man. How have I not been as successful as that? And how do I get there? What do I do? And that's, I suppose, why I love my job. I love conversations like this. Because I think that ev- you know, everyone can, can give you that little bit of information about what they've done in their life. And, and that's why I like sitting with, you know, high achieving sports people, because all I care about is that, that high achieving mindset that they've had.

• 7:39Steven Bartlett?

  Has it ever been somewhat anticlimactic things you've achieved? Because, because they didn't, you expected them to feel like euphoria and, and like a finish line or a mountain top, but they, they didn't quite feel that way. So, it felt somewhat anticlimactic.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I, what I would say is I get a real buzz out of doing my job. I really love being a TV presenter. I really like the, the mental challenge of hearing seven or eight voices in my ear while I'm at a big sports event with sixty or seventy thousand people, and I'm trying to navigate through and get us out the other side and get the best out of the pundits and come off air at the exact second. I love the challenge of that, and I really enjoy the journey. But I don't think that I've ever, I think part of the problem is I don't feel like I've got to where I'm going yet. And, and so therefore I've never had that moment of euphoria where I think, oh my goodness, I've done it. This is amazing. This is me.

• 8:36Steven Bartlett?

  Doesn't that concern you to some degree? Because you, it sounds like that's a place you will never arrive at.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Possibly, but I am still enjoying the journey on the way. I don't feel I've had my moment yet, and I don't feel I've had that moment where I go, yes, that was wonderful. But I absolutely live with the mantra of savour it. Every single minute of every day. Um, I try and make the most of it, you know?