Jake's Notebook | Are You Wasting Time? The Hidden Forces Shaping Your Discipline and Relationships

0:00Friends, how are you? Welcome back to my notebook. Before I go any further, let me say once more as I have done that I do not take this for granted the fact that you come back to my notebook week after week and that you just give me 20 minutes of your very precious life and actually time is something that we're going to talk about over the next 20 or so minutes um I had a lovely message from a guy called Jake a fellow podcaster and I said and he was telling me he loves the notebook I said what do you want me to talk about he said please talk about time so I'm going to do that I'm going to share an extract from a book in this episode um called unlearning masculinity Redefining Success for High Achieving Men Over 40 by an amazing woman called Cassandra Andrews.

0:38I'm going to talk to you about doing hard things, about motivation, the importance of habits, and yeah, we'll talk about time as well. But welcome along to my notebook. Once again, I'm sitting upstairs in my study on my own, as I do every single week, to give you the real me. No script, no plan, everything unfiltered, everything unscripted. I've just made some notes this week in my notebook and I'm about to share them with you. Why a notebook? Well, for the last 20 years, I've made notes regularly. I continue to do so. It's such a vital and important part of my life. And the reaction to these episodes have been fantastic.

1:16So thanks for coming back for more. I promise you, I do not take it for granted. I love the conversation that we're building right here. But let's do it. Let's open this week's notebook.

1:31Trust. There's a beautiful analogy about trust. And the analogy is that trust grows at the speed of a coconut tree and falls at the speed a coconut drops to the ground. And I've been thinking a lot about trust this week because I think that it's something that is shining through with the work that we're doing on high performance. The reason why you come back to listen to these episodes is trust. The reason why high performance has been so successful is trust. And it takes so long to build and it is so easy to throw it away and the reason why um i wanted to mention trust to all of you is that i want you to understand that trust is not a strategy right trust is not a buzzword i see trust as kind of this invisible currency that basically decides whether anything in your life anything a relationship a business a team a dream whether it survives so um the brilliant uh american actually canadian american motivational speaker he's also an author and a business strategist he wrote 80 books on on this subject a guy called brian tracy he said this he said the glue that holds all relationships together including the relationship between the leader and the lead is trust and trust is based on integrity and i think when you think about it is there anything in your life that doesn't base itself on trust every single relationship it's it's also and i've spoken previously on my notebook about the importance of taking risks right trust is what lets you take risks because you can only really take the biggest risks if you do it together and the only way that you can take a big risk with them with someone is if you trust them i think trust is what allows ideas to move forwards i think it allows conversations to deepen it allows progress to happen without trust every single thing falls apart and i think you can have the best vision in the world right and i hope that you do i hope that you found your why i hope that you have a sense of purpose but if people don't trust you they're not going to follow you and i I don't believe you can get to any of these places that we want to get to on our own.

3:29And by the way, you can say all the right things. But if your actions don't line up, your words just look like noise. There's this great phrase, I don't believe what you say because I see what you do. I don't believe what you say because I see what you do. And trust is not built by what you promise people or what people promise you. It's built by what you prove. And I think that Caribbean saying at the beginning about the coconut tree is absolutely right. It's the hardest part of trust. It takes years to build. It takes seconds to lose. One lie, one betrayal. I feel it very much on doing these podcasts.

4:02I mean, you know, I've been staunchly anti-gambling for a long time. The amount of money that's come my way to put gambling advertising on to high performance. I mean, I would be living on a yacht in Monaco probably, but there's a reason I'm not. And it's because I believe, I don't believe in it. And I believe that it betrays my trust with you. And I think as soon as those foundations start cracking, you're in trouble. but when trust is there right when people know that when you say you'll show up you do when they know that you're telling the truth when they know that if you make a mistake you own it everything will change conversations will become really honest decisions will happen much faster loyalty isn't something that you need to ever think about again because it just becomes totally natural and that's why you should care about trust because i think it's the one thing in life that we can't fake and every time i go on social media i'm reminded that we live in this world obsessed with image and obsessed with speed right but trust is still earned the old-fashioned way through consistency through integrity through courage one of my issues with podcasting is that i think people that produce untrustworthy content and there are a few of them are tarnishing the whole industry i think it won't take a lot for a few untrustworthy podcasts to lead people to no longer trust the podcasting industry and actually at the moment podcasters and youtubers are the most trusted content creators in the world.

5:21And it's so important to me to keep hold of that trust. So look, if you want to lead, if you want to love, if you want to matter, if you want to get to the places that you want to get to, please understand that trust is where it starts. Because also trust isn't just what holds relationships together. I think trust is also what holds you together as well. So that's my little ramble on trust. All right, what did I write here? Oh yeah, okay. So I wrote in here, I wrote, I wrote, well done. And I remember why I wrote, well done, I can't speak this evening. I remember why I wrote well done in my diary was because this week I went to Italy.

5:57I was very lucky to go to Italy just for 24 hours for a bit of work. And funnily enough, for someone that has hosted TV for years and hosts a podcast, right, I do get a bit of social anxiety. And I've never, I've never actually spoken about it. It's not massive. It's not a big deal, but But like, if there's an option to go back to my room and do a bit of work or watch some videos on YouTube or watch a movie or something, like I'll probably choose that rather than going for dinner and sitting and having dinner with a bunch of people that I've never met before. Like that just freaks me out a little bit.

6:29And I was in Italy this week and the people were lovely and I'd already said I didn't want to go for the dinner. And it was actually a guy called Ben that I met and he was so nice. And I said, he said, are you coming for dinner? I said, no, not tonight, Ben. And I'm, by the way, we were doing something with Ferrari. We were at the Ferrari test track, right, in Maranello. I mean, it was bloody cool. I was looking at all of the amazing F1 cars. I saw John Serti's Formula One helmet, which was on display in the museum. Like the first ever Ferrari produced in the factory. It was incredible. And he said, are you coming for dinner, Ben?

7:00He said, are you coming for dinner? I said, no, mate, I'm just going to go back to that terrible man chill. I've got an early start. I mean, my cab wasn't until six, right? I could have gone for dinner. And he went, nah, you're coming for dinner. so I did um and it was really nice and actually I had a glass of red wine you know that I don't drink very much and I just had a really lovely evening and the reason why I wrote well done was because it's a reminder that sometimes in life you have to do the things that you actively do not want to do right and it's and it's for a few reasons right the first one is because there's going to be a moment in your life where you have to do the thing that you don't want to do and if you spend your life avoiding the things that you just don't want to do when you get forced to do something that you don't want to do you don't have a body of evidence that you can cope with it there's no evidence at all that you'll be all right so then it starts to send you into a tailspin but of course if you do sometimes just do the thing that you actively do not want to do then when you are forced into something you don't want to do you know you can cope with it because you say well i do it in my home i do it anyway i always do things i don't want to do so i'll be able to cope with this absolutely brilliantly but there's also something else that you need to know okay and this is wild we're going to talk about time in a moment thanks to the question from jake but this will give you time doing things that you actually don't want to do will give you time because and this is ridiculous but it's also true right the part of your brain that grows when you do hard things is the same part that helps people to live a long time so basically scientists um and this was first mentioned to us by uh matt fraser the crossfit coach when he came on high performance a few years ago right scientists started the brain of centurions people that have um centurions centenarians people that have lived to a hundred right um and they found something remarkable there are two regions that keep showing up stronger and healthier than expected in their brains the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus i feel a bit like damien hughes talking about the brain but i've spoken about this a lot so i kind of feel confident talking about it so the prefrontal cortex is right behind your forehead right and that is the command center for discipline for focus for self-control every single time you do something that you actively don't want to do drag yourself to the gym finish the work that you didn't fancy sit with your discomfort instead of escaping it that part of your brain fires up things in that bit of your brain go so i'm an amazing procrastinator okay i should have been recording what i'm saying to you now about two hours ago but i just floated around at home instead so every time i just bring myself into the study and record this those parts of my brain start firing up and over time that bit of your brain it grows and it thickens and then it can met and then it connects more deeply with the emotional part of your brain so actually you become calmer you become clearer with things you become more capable and then i mentioned the hippocampus um so the hippocampus is the memory and the learning hub right one of the few places in the adult brain where new neurons still grow and what triggers the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus challenge, learning, movement, curiosity.

9:58And this gets a bit fancy, but I think it's fascinating when you step into something uncomfortable and like how often do we avoid discomfort, by the way, when you step into that lack of comfort, you think this isn't doing anything for me. Your brain is releasing a protein called BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic neurotrophic factor it's like fertilizer basically for your neurons so it keeps your brain young it keeps your memory sharp so those moments when you do what you don't want to do are not small they are literally sculpting your brain for longevity because centenarians don't just live a long time they they engage and the more they engage the longer they live the more curious they are the more they keep moving forwards um so maybe we found the secret to a longer richer life and it isn't found in doing what's easy, right?

10:46But it's in the friction that's created with effort. So every rep of discipline, every, I don't know, ounce of resistance, the acts of courage, all those things are strengthening the parts of you that actually keep you alive. So next time you don't want to do the thing that you need to do, just remember this, right? The resistance is your brain inviting you to grow and growth is what keeps you young. So well done me for going for dinner in Italy. What an idiot. Right. I've had a lot of people reaching out this week, asking me or telling me that they just struggled to do the thing that they need to do.

11:22And I think this is really important. Okay. What I want you to understand about this is that the only way to do things is to be motivated to do them. Right. But you can't just wait around for motivation. If you're listening to this episode and you think, right, I really needed to do a certain thing this week, or it's really important that I do something next week. Okay, please don't just expect that on Monday morning, the start of a new week, you're going to wake up and be motivated to do it. It's the same reason why you tell yourself that you're going to diet from January because you feel you'll be motivated or that tomorrow is the day that I'm going to make the fundamental change to my life that I need to change.

11:56That's not how motivation works. You're not just unmotivated Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then wake up on a Monday and go, wow, bloody hell, this is it. The motivation's arrived. here's what I want you to understand four words action leads to motivation you will you will not be motivated out of the blue to do the thing that you know you need to do but as soon as you take the first step as soon as you start on the journey as soon as you get some feedback as soon as you get some evidence as soon as you start to feel good as soon as you remind yourself that you're actually doing something that you didn't want to do what we just spoken about for the last five minutes, the motivation will come.

12:34And as the motivation comes, you do a bit more and you work a bit harder and you get more rewards and it leads to more motivation. Honestly, action is a snowball. Action leads to motivation. So if you're struggling right now to be motivated in any area of your life, please, like you've probably tried loads of different things. Have you tried actually taking action and just sticking at it for a few days or a week or so until you find actually you no longer need to wait for the motivation? Because for some reason you're just able to do it. It's just there. it's just happening it's so incredible i think it's so powerful and i really want you to understand it that action leads to motivation i'm also a catastrophizer right so if something is about to happen in my life i just somehow manage to tell myself that it's going to be the worst thing ever um and what i've also found is that action reduces my anxiety so if i'm worried about something just a few steps in the right direction to try and sort it out it makes a really big difference for me so that's the other thing that I really want you to understand is action reduces anxiety, or at least it definitely does.

13:33It definitely does in my case. Right. What's next? Micro. I want to talk to you very quickly about micro habits. If any of you are listening to this and you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen that this week we had like, it is a tough day to be honest. I mean, oh my God, it's like some people actually have a proper job. It's not actually a tough day in the grand scheme of tough days. But this week, we recorded the audio book for Micro Habits, which is our brand new book that comes out on the 1st of January, 2026. Pre-orders are off the charts. I'm so excited. If you want to pre-order yours, I'll put a link in the description to this show and you can just click the link and pre-order the book.

14:09And there's a discount, 20 % discount as well, if you use the code that you see there. So if you want a 20 % discount for a brand new book, Micro Habits, quickly press pause, hit the link in the description, pre-order the book, and then come back and listen to the rest are you back you probably didn't even go did you but honestly it's a bloody good book damon and i've spent months in fact most of the year trying to make it the best book that we've ever written um and the book is called micro habits and we went into the recording studio the publisher is penguin they've got these beautiful offices right next to the american embassy in battersea in central london so we went there on monday this week got there at nine o 'clock in the morning and i mean if you imagine what it would be like to read a 300 page book in a day.

14:52That's basically what we did. Although as we were reading it, we were also saying it out loud, but actually we're lucky there's two of us. Cause while Damien reads for two or three minutes, I can sort of sip my tea, catch my breath. And then, then it's my turn to go. Um, but on, it's quite a day of any of you, if there are any authors listening to this, you will know that recording on audio book doesn't sound like very much. And in fact, you sound like a bit of a tool for moaning about the stress and pressure of a whole day sitting, still reading, but man I was knackered on Monday evening um but why have we released a book and called it micro habits um the reason is because habits are the bridge between hope and transformation because you might be thinking that you control your dreams and I'm sure you control what you dream about but I don't believe that you control whether those dreams come true but you do control your habits and your habits will determine whether those dreams come true so think of the thing that you want most in the world.

15:47The way to get there is by focusing on daily small habits that get you to that place. So if your dream is for in two years or five years, you can work backwards and every decision that you make every day, you ask yourself the same question, does this get me closer or further away from the dream that I want? But why are habits so powerful? Well, the reason why habits are so powerful, and you will be shocked by this, we make between 30 and 35 ,000 decisions every day. I read that and thought, don't be stupid. And so I did a bit of research and it's true. 30 to 35 ,000 decisions every single day.

16:24And every single decision that you make determines where you end up. When we had James Clear on high performance, he delivered a line that I must have repeated a thousand times since. Every action you take is a vote for the person that you want to be so 30 to 35 000 times a day you're voting for the person that you want to be and probably for 32 and a half thousand of those decisions you don't even realize that you're making those decisions they're just you're like an autopilot like when you're driving a car you don't even think about it but the truth is that if you can just improve your decision making by one percent every day at the end of a year you're going to be over 300 better you're going to be three times the person that you are right now listening to this if you can just focus on your habits so let's start by just going through your day and thinking that every action you take is a vote for the person that you want to be what time do you get out of bed that's a vote whether you roll over and kiss your partner or go straight on your phone in the morning is another vote whether you tell yourself you're going to have a good day is a vote whether you just take 10 seconds to feel grateful for one thing at the start of your day is a vote whether you make your other half a cup of tea or get their breakfast ready or prepare the snack for your kids or just light a candle in your kitchen all of those things are a bit of love language right for someone else so each one of those is a vote the breakfast that you decide to make for yourself is a vote whether you dwell on the thing that happened the day before that you can't control and all this does by the way is lead to anxiety or that's also a vote how you talk to your colleagues how you talk to yourself what you have for lunch whether you find time to go to the gym whether you're kind to yourself when you make a mistake, whether you forgive others quickly, every single one of these things is a vote.

18:04And every single vote determines where you end up. So that's why we've written a book called Micro Habits, because we've spoken to like 400, over 400 people on high performance, and all of them have got habits that they live by, little things that they do every day. And what we've done is we've taken the little habits from over, I think there's 48 chapters in the book. So 48 guests are featured who've been on high performance. And we talk about their habit that they use in their everyday life. And then we give you the science behind it and encourage you to take it into your own life. So look, habits are that bridge between hope and transformation.

18:34Don't live your life in hope, live your life being transformed and you don't control anything other than your habits. But the good news for you is that your habits control everything. So, um, go focus on your habits and a good habit would be to get our brand new book, micro habits. you can pre-order it now right jake so um i i haven't i think jake will be fine with this so um jake i was going to sort of keep him anonymous but if you've um he probably would enjoy me talking about his show jake is um a formula one lover just like me he hosts a show uh a podcast called pit stop it's on youtube it's bloody hilarious it's basically him and his mate sitting in their flat talking about formula one it's very funny but anyway he sent me the kindest nicest message this week um let me get it up for you he basically just said he tried to voice note me but it wouldn't let him um he just wanted to say thanks for the notebook he finds incredible amounts of inspiration from these words he's built numerous businesses he's been in this crazy world since he was 13 and my knowledge and insight is golden to him so thanks for the notebooks in the last couple of weeks he says he's made notes tried new techniques never felt better or happier I love that um and he just sort of said he appreciated what I did and then I sent him a voice note he sent me one back I said look tell me one thing you want me to talk about and his answer was can you please talk about time and the slow passage of time um well let me give you a quote from Seneca and this is for you Jake and everyone else that thinks a lot about time and as you know um I'm a stoic um I bloody love any stoic thinking Seneca said uh well it was 2000 thousand years ago right he said it's not that we have a short time to live but that we waste much of it and i think that what he says there is more relevant now than ever before because more than ever before i think that we act like um this endless resource we act like time is an endless resource it's something that we can just spend carelessly maybe scrolling maybe waiting maybe delaying maybe promising ourselves that one day we'll get to the things that matter what did we just talk about when it comes to motivation.

20:41But one day will become someday, someday will never come. And I think what's important about what Seneca is saying there is not that life is short, he's actually saying you've got enough time, like life is long enough. Stop telling yourself that life is short, everyone gets a lifetime, right? Life is long enough. If we actually live it, if we stop letting our days be stolen by distraction or fear or the comfort of routine. you know how much of your time is actually yours and how much do you lose towards noise of life to the obligations that don't actually feed you in a nourish you in a great way how much time do you spend chasing approval that doesn't actually fill your cup what percent of your time is spent doing things that you really wish you didn't do and some of them you can't help i get that we all do things that we that we wouldn't wish to do but how much of our time are we actually really dedicated to the things that we really want to do and the worst thing about this is we just don't notice time slipping away because it never screams right as it leaves it's just like more of a quiet whisper and every morning when you wake up every night when you close your eyes another page is gone 24 hours go every single day and no matter how much time you spend in the gym or the supplements you take or how calm and chilled out you are you will never get those 24 hours back ever so i think that maybe we should just draw a line in the sand listen to what seneca says and just say to ourselves like no more waiting no more wasting because when that clock runs out and it does it is inevitable the tragedy isn't that life was too short it's that we didn't show up for it and Seneca wasn't warning us I don't think I think he was probably challenging us and I think the challenge still stands you know don't just exist in time engage with it spend it with intention because I don't believe that life is measured by the length of time i believe it's measured by what we put into it and one of the greatest poems um that i i've repeated over and over again in fact um we read it on stage during the high performance tour was um about the true joy of life by george bernard shaw and he says um let me find it quickly bear with me caller it's here and this is a little extract from it he said um george bernard shaw i want to be thoroughly used up when i die for the harder i work the more i live i rejoice in life for its own sake life is no brief candle for me it's a sort of splendid torch which i have got hold of for the moment and i want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations in the same way that our kids are only on loan right so is life so is life and i love that idea i want to be thoroughly used up when I die.

23:26What a brilliant sentence. And I want you to feel the same. Yes, time is moving by. Of course it is. You'll never get this time back. But memento mori, people. Remember, you're dying. I have that tattooed on my wrist. I have FTB on my right wrist in honor of Eddie Jordan. Fuck the begrudges on my left wrist. Memento mori. Because I have got a terminal death sentence and so have you i can give you one right now you know that thing where people talk about going to the doctor and being told that they've they've got a terminal illness and they change the way they live i think it's the saddest thing ever if you were given a terminal diagnosis today what are the things that you would cut out of your life and what are the things that you would do with your life within reason because i can give you that terminal diagnosis right now on this podcast and obviously you can't just quit your job and travel the world and whatever but there are a lot of things that maybe you would choose not to do so what are those things what are those toxic poisonous shitty things that you spend your day doing um because you're dying we all are uh that isn't that positive lovely another uplifting notebook from jake humphrey um i want to finish um the last few episodes i've finished by reading uh from the daily stoic but i want to read a an extract from the most fantastic book that i would love you to think about getting your hands on.

24:48I'm recording this a week and a half before International Men's Day, which is on the 19th of November. And I want to read an introduction from a book called Unlearning Masculinity by the incredible Cassandra Andrews. This is her introduction to the book. And I think when I've read it, you'll understand why I love it. Women must hate you, he jests, raising an eyebrow. As I tell him, I'm a therapeutic coach exclusively for men over 40. I'm at a networking event the room buzzing with energy and mostly filled with men in their 40s and 50s these are the men i work with every day high achievers who seem to have it all yet carry a quiet unseen weight the man in front of me just 52 embodies this perfectly i look at him and i say most men over 40 were raised to believe they must embody society's version of a real man one who's emotionally strong works hard always wins and provides for their family and this real man must never show or talk about his feelings.

25:44So when confronted with difficult emotions, what most men do is ignore them, bury them and pretend they don't exist. Go on, he urges. I continue. I believe society is responsible. We fail to equip men with the tools to understand or process their emotions. Instead, we've handed them a rule book that sets them up to fail. What are the issues then, he asks. Well, the first is identity. Many of my clients define themselves by their achievements, business, house, car, the roles they play in society. What happens if they're taken away? What if they sell their business, get divorced, lose what defines them through ill health?

26:20Who are they then? The second is loss of purpose. They've worked tirelessly to get to the top, sacrificed so much along the way, and they've done it. But it just doesn't feel the way they thought it would. and finally many feel trapped or stuck burdened by responsibility and obligation they long to be held to feel like their family cares about them as more than just a cash point then there's the sex the elephant in the room it's a source of frustration or disconnection so they turn to porn other women or they simply shut down they tell themselves it's fine they'll just throw themselves into work instead that's the introduction to the book cassandra says for decades the spotlight has been on women helping them redefine their roles and their worth and rightly so she says i just can't help but ask what about the men who's shining a light on and for them showing them there's another way to be so if you've built the life that you should want cassandra says this is the book that will help you create the one you actually want it's called unlearning masculinity it is so practical it's by cassandra andrews um you can get it wherever you get your books from i would highly recommend it and that is it from another notebook i've rambled i think i said in the first episode these are the ramblings of a madman and a few people have messaged me and said i enjoyed your ramblings of a madman this week so there you go those are the ramblings of a madman um i've got quite a few things to be doing um and tomorrow morning I'm going to go for a paddle lesson with my wife so I've got a smile on my face about that and later this evening I'm taking Sebastian to football training and you know what just let me say one thing okay this is really brief but I think it's quite important you know how life tells us that there are certain things that matter more than other things okay I have hosted the Champions League final when Manchester City finally won the Champions League I have hosted FA Cup finals I have hosted the Premier League match where Liverpool finally ended their wait for a premier league trophy i have hosted formula one grand prix where jensen button managed to become the world champion right nothing makes me as happy as standing on the touchline watching sebastian play football on a sunday morning or watching florence play hockey for her school on a wednesday afternoon nothing and i think it's quite important to remember that sort of stuff because sometimes you ignore the things that every fiber of your being is telling you that this matters, but you don't listen to it because you think society is telling you something else, that something else must be more important than this, but it often isn't.

28:56Just listen to yourself because you know the right thing to do this week. You know the right decisions to make. You know the right people to hang around with. You know to be kind to yourself. And I am literally sitting in a shitty little study in Norwich rooting for you, hoping for the best, knowing that you deserve it. So have a great week. Please, there's only one thing I ask. I can't tell you how important this is if you don't do this no one basically knows about this show and then i just stopped doing it so if you want me to carry on with this please just stick it on your socials and just tell people to listen to it please i can't tell you how much of a difference it makes um send it to a friend rate and review the show it just means i'll carry on um and without those things eventually it just is the natural way of the world that i'll end up stopping so if you can do that i'd be hugely grateful.

29:40Get your hands on micro habits, get your hands on unlearning masculinity by Cassandra Andrews and get your hands on a brilliant week. I'm cheering you on. See you later.