Jake Humphrey- Is High Performance Really About Achievement?

0:00What does high performance really mean? Is it about the accolades, the corner office, the scorecard of external achievement? Or is it something deeper and more essential? When I sat down with Jake Humphrey, one of Britain's most respected sports broadcasters, I was struck by his radical answer to this question. For Jake, high performance isn't about chasing glory. It's about finding deep contentment and being true to yourself. It's a philosophy hard-earned through incredible ups and downs, from overcoming childhood bullying to facing rejection as an aspiring TV presenter. But through it all, Jake has never lost sight of what matters.

0:39Family, authenticity, and showing up as his best self. In our conversation, Jake challenges us to redefine success on our own terms. He shares his battles with his own self-doubt and the practices that keep him grounded in a high-pressure world. But most powerfully, he invites us to cultivate happiness from the inside out, not through grand gestures, but through daily acts of gratitude, vulnerability and service. In a world obsessed with external markers of success, Jake reminds us that no matter how much we achieve, if we're not fulfilled on the inside, it's all for nothing. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or unsure of what success really means to you, this episode is a must listen.

1:24Jake's story is a testament to the truth that happiness isn't something you chase, it's something you choose, moment by moment, day by day. Stay tuned, my conversation with Jake Humphrey is coming up.

1:40F1? Yep. Sports personality of the year? Yep. FA Cup? Yep. Champions League, Champions League final, like everything really, London Olympics? Yeah. I'm sure I've missed out some stuff. Probably. It feels a little bit like the bucket list of what a young sports personality person would ever dream of. Yeah. And now you've got high performance podcasts, Whisper TV, lots of different identities. Who are you? I think I'm just someone that's doing their best not to fuck it up. Like, I know that some people would sit here and immediately, and I've interviewed them and so have you, they'd immediately give this amazing answer and you're like, oh my goodness, I must listen to the rest of this episode.

2:24This is incredible. And fair play to them for being able to do that. That isn't me. I always feel like I'm actually not a great storyteller, not actually great at telling people where I've been on what I've done. But I think what I can bring is just absolute total honesty that a kid from a small village in Norfolk who messed up at school had no redeeming features in any way, shape or form when he was in his teens. has ended up managing to do these things that you've just mentioned. And luck has a big part to play. And I think people don't talk about luck because it takes away this feeling that they've done it all themselves.

3:04But luck's vital. And there's an ancient, I think maybe Seneca? Right. One of the Stoics. They're all the same. Luck is preparation meets opportunity. to yeah i believe yes i believe that i think you know when you say what are you or who are you i would actually say an optimist i think that is the single biggest defining thing in my whole life right is that i am optimistic no matter what's happened i do feel that tomorrow is going to be amazing and i actually when things are going wrong and i've had lots of those moments in my life it it creates a weird excitement in me where i think i'm so glad that one's out of the way i can't wait to see what happens next what good stuff is around the corner why are you here why do you want to come and do a secret leaders interview why why chat to a business audience why chat to me on camera because we chat off camera so why do it in a formal setting partly because i met you and really like you partly because i use we can cut there make it leave that end of the interview partly because i use heights and really like it i'm really intrigued by your story i love the stuff that you post um But I think also, I do think that there isn't a lot of great content out there for entrepreneurs or for business leaders or for founders or for people trying to create and build teams or for people who are desperate to lift others up.

4:30And I don't pertain to have any answers for anyone or anything. But I do think that I want people to see my story and understand that it could be theirs as well because there is nothing remarkable or unique about it. and I get frustrated that I feel we're in this world where people are desperate to tell you how unique and remarkable they are, how they've done it on their own. It's all, I think, nonsense. And so let's just talk about what really happens and what really goes on. And hopefully there will be some value for people. Someone at dinner last night I was with said, the sooner someone tells me their story or their version of how they see themselves, the less likely I am to believe it's true.

5:07Yeah, I think it's absolutely right. I thought that was really deep. I was like, God, that's so spot on, isn't it? especially in the modern age, everyone's trying to continually tell you who they are. Yeah. And I suppose another reason for me wanting to come and talk to you is probably that people love to put others in a box, right? And people do put me in that sports presenter box or ex-kids TV presenter box. Not a bad box to be in. Not a bad box to be in. And a box that I loved being in for a long time and a box that I got bored of and left and actually weirdly have no desire to go back into that box, which I'm sure my agent will hate.

5:43But I suppose I also like the idea of having a conversation about something different because I don't think 99.9 % of the people that stop me in the street and have a conversation have any idea about who or what I am other than the guy they saw on kids TV or the guy they've seen hosting football. So there's a lot out there, as we know. Watch the interviews. I feel like there's a lot about what you've done. Yeah. I'm more interested in how you think you've done it. You mentioned, you know, kid from Norfolk. Yep. Bloody love Norfolk, by the way. Snap. Still live there. Yeah. But, you know, I wouldn't want to live there.

6:21Give it a go. Give it a go. Yeah. All right. Thanks for the offer. My wife will be thrilled to get me out and the production back up to Norfolk. But one thing that I read in your, you know, in your story that actually resonated with me, something that I experienced yeah bullying you talk a lot about bullying how do you think that that has had an impact on who you are today and how you've done what you've done so I look at the bullies as um I look at them as my collaborators really now and definitely didn't at the time and you've been through it yourself I mean it's it's very strange experience for me dropping the kids off at school because they love school and they dance in and my wife loved it as well and I still have the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see them walk off it just triggers how I felt as a 13 14 year old that dreaded feeling of I've got to spend all day just having this shit ripped out of me but I do believe that um now and this is a hard one for people if they're in the middle of that you you know was it Steve Jobs that said something about connecting the dots backwards does it make sense going forwards it doesn't there's loads of stuff really that when I was younger didn't really make sense to me the bullying losing my grandma being fired from McDonald's failing all all these sort of moments of oh god and even when I got into telly I still keep a great big folder at home of all of the rejection letters from when I decided I wanted to be a tv presenter and I wrote to everyone and got a no from everybody I think it's powerful for me to turn that around to feel like these people are my collaborators right so that all of because what else could they be if you don't if you don't think like that you're just going to let it eat you up right I will hate forever that I got bullied and I will hate forever that it still happens and it's still prevalent in school but there's two crucial things I think that it created one the optimism like how can you be bullied every day at school still put your bag on still get out of the car and still walk into school holding back the tears or if they if they do start to come not daring to turn around to wave goodbye to your parents because you know they're going to see those tears right and it gets me now when I think about it so the first thing it did was the optimism it was like you can only be optimistic in that situation maybe today will be okay and the second thing is the resilience I am actually and will be forever and eternally grateful that I existed in a place where every day I had to walk forwards into a fucking shit storm and just deal with it and I worry now that my kids don't have those shit storms in their life and I am concerned about where their resilience will come from and I worry generally about young people now um and you know this idea that as parents we helicopter our kids hover around them all the time solving all their problems and i talk often with harry and my wife like we can't solve that they have to go and be upset they have to go and have a difficult conversation they have to go and have a shitty day it's a parent it goes against every piece of your being that you're going to allow your kid to have that but you have to remember what it does for you in the long run so very hard but what's you know hard for you isn't necessarily bad for you as i've come to learn amazing because you literally took away my next question because i do find it totally fascinating like you as a parent yeah um i've interviewed we interview you know similar but different people you know you've got the high performers i've got lots of billionaires you know and you ask and you learn yeah and you know having listened to so many of your episodes it's all bloody similar it's like through some insert adversity yeah i learned insert some obviously incredibly valuable skill outcome attitude quite often it's the attitude it's natural as a parent and you know a lot of people come from you know no money and then or their parents get rich whilst they're growing up or at least they've seen two sides but then you're really successful and your kids are growing up in a beautiful home in beautiful space with none of the stuff that you didn't have all the stuff you didn't have at the same time and if you know what happened to you has worked so well for you how to reverse engineer this stuff probably but then i'm but then i also think like there's a lot's happened to me right how do i know it was that that's the challenge isn't it it was it the bullying maybe this is just who i am was it the early rejections in tv maybe it's this idea that i ended up sort of stumbling into television and it was and it felt natural from minute one well if i'd never stumbled into television all those early traumas and challenges would maybe be valueless right it's i also don't get myself too caught up in all of this stuff right because i just think that therein lies mental health challenges because you like you just have to kind of you have to allow a bit of flow and freedom for you and for everyone else around you which is why like i will never think to myself i wish i i wish i hadn't gone to that school where i got bullied because how do i know that the school that I did go to would be any better.

11:38I'm surrounded by messages from people wishing they'd done other things. Well, and I always say this, like you could have got run over going to that thing that you think would have been amazing. How do you know any different? You kind of have to accept that the life that you live is this lived experience. And you have to let go of the probably infinite number of other experiences that you're never going to have. And just be very relaxed about the fact that they're not yours. that's for someone else to live or for nobody to live and it's the same with our kids really this is their lived experience we'll do everything we can to try and pass on the things that we've learned and the mistakes that we've made but you can only control what you can control so isn't the fact that we learned them and made those mistakes great as well so how much do we pass on i don't know i like the consistency it's all a mystery mate that's the that's the thing but i like the you're like the the consistency the one thing i'm sure of that has got me here is norfolk so the kids are growing up there exactly there's one thing you can't take out of me it's not exactly and that's where they are yeah yeah is there is there some reason that ties you back there it's quite unusual it is quite unusual yeah like i said i honestly norfolk's one of my favorite places full stop i think it's amazing yeah however big demanding career and tv etc does not mean you live in Norfolk.

12:57I mean, maybe Manchester is a push because it's convenient, but London. So how come? I think it was, it's a realization that when you have kids, you become the least important person in that family, right? So we lived in London when I worked in TV. I worked in Formula One. We had to live in London at the time. I went to London when I was 21. So I was doing my work experience at a TV channel after messing up my A-levels, got a job. And this guy said to me, you should make a showreel and I didn't actually I had no concept of what a showreel was I didn't have to take your clothes off yeah dance around I had no idea of like a tv presenter's career or life it wasn't a thing that I was aspiring to but he said you're good at this presenting which I was doing kind of ad hoc because I had no money to pay presenters so I made a show we went to London and that's how I ended up getting a load of rejection letters then getting a break and ending up on kids tv then when I landed the formula one job I needed to be in the Heathrow airport so that was important we then had Florence our first child and we were talking then about going back to Norfolk and then when I got the BT sport job I knew that I wouldn't be traveling out the country but I'd be traveling around the country and we just had a conversation and it was like fuck my career where's the best place to bring up our kids it was the number one priority I didn't care what it meant for my own career so we moved back to Norfolk and I knew then that the the strain would be on me because I was hosting games in Liverpool, Manchester, Brighton, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Wales.

14:24I'd be the one in the car for 10 hours a day and then hosting football programs between that. But what's the payoff? My kids are surrounded by their aunts and uncles. My kids treat their cousins like their brothers and sisters. My kids have a brilliant relationship with their grandparents. That's all real stuff. Me having a great TV presenting career is not real stuff doesn't actually matter there's nothing there's no legacy from me saying i want a bafta for my sports presenting but there is a legacy for saying my kids have had a brilliant grounded upbringing surrounded by wonderful people and a loving family so that was the that was the decision and it remains a decision to this day it's unusual to have someone so clear about priorities yeah is it yeah i'm surprised it is i thought people who sat in this chair would be really clear about their priorities most people that speak on this show are they're self-aware enough to know that their biggest downfall is that they're career obsessed yeah and that actually you know business comes first when they know it shouldn't it's just one more year and just five more years and then this problem happens and you get caught in the trap yeah well i've always been just really aware of mortality i think i lost a friend at a really young age and i think that I lived with him at the time when I first went to London and that twisted things up a little bit for me but certainly made me realize like how quick the passage of time goes and I've always had this very strange thought right that it almost feels like it's already or it's already done like if I say to you now think about when I leave this interview and people don't do this really think about when I leave this interview and in our heads we go well I can't think about that because there's a whole interview to do and that will take ages i promise you mate when i leave let's say now when i leave i'm going to say to you before i leave remember what i said about how quick that went and it will be like shit that hour really did go that's how the last 45 years has gone for me so that kind of awareness of the speed of time passing by you have to have clarity of thought and you have to have clarity of thought over big decisions in your life but you also have of clarity of thought over the things that you are not good at i'm not a great businessman i'll be the first to admit that yeah i've co-founded arguably the biggest independent production company in the uk high performance is doing great but i'm but when it comes to business conversations i'm like i'm out because i'm just not it's just not i just don't get it i'm shit with money and finance and and i uh i'm like an operator on instinct right so i'll happily have a great conversation about instinctually what should we go for and what should we do and where could we grow and I'm probably not risk averse like I love risks I love to challenge the status quo but I so I would have real clear courage of my convictions when it's like we're moving home we're going to go home with the kids clear courage of my convictions I'm going to walk away from formula one because I want to be at home and be a present dad I'm going to no longer chase working in television because it's no longer serving any purpose for me.

17:34I'm going to focus fully on high performance because I feel like I've found my life's purpose. In those areas, I can have a real good, quick, clear decision. And the team like that, I'm a quick decision maker. But I'm not the CEO of anything. I have a CEO of Whisper. I have a CEO of high performance because I know where my limitations are. And I almost feel like, and this might be a total cop-out, right? I almost feel I don't have time to learn that stuff. I like it feels a much easier win for me to say you're the CEO make the big business decisions you're the COO make the big operational decisions maybe I'm just like one of those annoying creatives that floats in has some idea and then allows other people to do it yeah maybe that's great for people maybe that's not great for people but that's all I can do it's famous uh talk that Alex Ferguson once gave, sorry, Sir Alex Ferguson, on Ryan Giggs as a young kid.

18:29And they just noticed that Ryan Giggs was just an absolute nightmare at tracking his man, was given left back, like proper problems all the time. And Alex Ferguson is such an authoritarian leader. He made no rules. Everyone had to do their job. Otherwise you were dead under him. But with Ryan, he was just so exceptional going forward that he decided that it was completely pointless to ever teach him how to track back he was just never going to do it he's never going to be great and Ryan Giggs was about 17 at that age he's like just I gave up on it yeah and I just told him to be the very best left winger in the world just go forward and pretty much did and honed and then changed his own management style based around like learning with Ryan Giggs ended up doing the same thing with Cristiano Ronaldo um it's really interesting because that I've always loved that lesson because it's like even someone like Alex Ferguson who had a system could then spot a unique talent and realize it was better for the whole system and the team for that talent to really focus on their one thing that could make them the best in the world which would lift the whole team and when i hear you say that it creates really good self awareness like i'm not the ceo of anything and actually do i have time to learn i don't know but i think the point is i'm going to be going from a two to a five yeah who needs a fucking five out of 10 ceo no company hire a 10 and let me go from like an 8 to an 8.5 to a 9 on the thing that i'm really good at it's better for everyone i think there's so many people that get in their own way by not just admitting it and you know i don't think i would have done anything that i have done anyway without that mindset because i think that what it what it actually allows me to do is and i you know i see i feel inferior often because i see other people on their socials telling me that they're the founder they're the CEO they're the marketing director they've written a book they've got this amazing social content I'm like how are you how are you doing all that like I honestly Dan I only have time to focus on growing Whisper and growing high performance I don't have anyone that manages my social media I just do it quickly when I feel I've got a spare five minutes and then I see like you're amazing like curated thought about deep brilliant posts and I'm like how do I have no time in my life for that but I think I think it's because for me but then you then you shove a fucking like post-it note up on LinkedIn and get like 20 ,000 likes just shove a post-it note there you go wonderful yeah but I that's all I can do though because I just don't have the capacity to do anything else and I think that the that's that understanding that I am not I honestly don't think I'm an expert in anything I'm like a floater I'm like a I don't know what I am really which is hard the first question what are you I just don't know but I think that knowing what I'm not is way more valuable than knowing what I am because let's take high performance for example there's some stuff people will know which is like we've built an app right I don't think we would have done that if I didn't have this time to be thinking like what's the real huge thing we could do if we had a load of time right down to the little things like we've just brought in a new maternity and paternity policy for the team it's only 17 people we've created a foundation linked to high performance which is working in schools and want to get in schools across the whole country a lot of that thinking is what you would do if you had a hundred million pound turnover business with a thousand staff you'd be worried about like a staff incentive scheme or creating a foundation but i think having not having to worry about loads of other stuff allows me to think what does what would I love this to look like in five or ten years therefore it allows long-term thinking rather than what's today's big decision what's today's problem what needs solving today so I don't I think that's kind of protected me in some ways I think it's actually very healthy for people to hear a grown man with a lot of honestly fantastic experience behind him saying I don't really know what I am or what I want to do particularly these days because everyone's trying to tell you that they are fully fucking sorted and they've got it nailed and I I would love my kids to be entrepreneurial right I'd also love them to work at the beginning of their careers I want them to have a crap job I want them to have a nasty I think that's so important I think that's all important but I also I would encourage them to find their thing because i think that there's more opportunity now than ever before in my world like that is that is everything that i didn't have when i was 17 so people come to me i'd love to be a broadcaster how do i do it and i'm like well there's instagram there's youtube there's linkedin find the thing that you're deeply passionate about and start talking about it sharing it and you will find not necessarily many millions of followers but a few thousand and if you really care about it and you don't care about being famous but you care about finding your tribe this is all you need well when I was a kid the only way to do that was get a job find a job on the telly to be a presenter now you don't need that so I think the opportunity for entrepreneurs and stealth starters and founders is greater than ever before I feel that the challenge at the moment is we live in an era where these great marketeers that I spoke about at the beginning are kind of making you feel you have to know everything and have everything sorted before you go and do it and i don't think you do i think you knowing your limitations is far more valuable than knowing where you excel i've been doing a little process in the morning i'm reading a book called the artist way yeah and have you heard of something called morning pages no so basically it's um to try and get uh more creative thoughts out so you just write three pages of garbage literally whatever comes out your head yeah and the idea is um you know downstream of a lot of garbage every day like if you don't do this process in theory you're putting garbage into your work and then your good work starts to come out a little bit later that's the theory behind it anyway the other day i started writing it and i started writing a whole bunch of things and i got to this thing that i was writing which was i feel like i'm 37 and i actually don't want to don't know what i want to do in my life yeah i was like so weird it's great it's weird like wrote it down i was like where does that come from that must be a real thing because i wrote it down but like how interesting that that just came out of my head what came out your head then no not necessarily um i really enjoy everything i do and i feel like i'm really lucky yeah but i wonder often like how is one meant to know that what they're doing is the thing that they're meant to be doing does it matter no great question i don't think it matters yeah like again that same thing we get wrapped up worrying about all the things that we're not doing and lose sight of of things that we are doing who's to say that what i was meant to be a tv presenter that turned into a podcast that set up a couple of businesses maybe i should have been around the world sailor but i haven't so i just have to let go of that yeah and i think that hundreds of years ago none of this was a problem and we're all so fucking wrapped up in our own selves like i really feel that like we were just surviving a few hundred years ago we were just scrapping for the next meal or trying to find our place in the pecking order so we didn't get our head chopped off or whatever that's not where we live now like we're so fortunate look at what we're so i mean look at the you're 37 look at what you've accumulated in your life do we need all this look at it it's loads of it so that weighs me down having too much stuff i think that you can't spend your time wondering whether you found the perfect thing the only question you need to ask yourself is are you happy if i say are you happy truly are you happy here's two answers to that question yes genuinely i am and i'm lucky because i practice gratitude every day and i have done for years and i'm really deliberate about it and i mean it and i'm like you i'm an optimist and i think being an optimist does actually come with a sunny disposition towards happiness anyway and some awareness of when things don't feel right too.

26:22The second part of that though is I'm not convinced that being happy is the be all and end all. And actually I feel like the pressure to be happy is part of the systemic problem in society. And I think about the happiness question now as a parent where is it literally so important that everyone is quote unquote happy? Yeah. is that just creating tons of pressure for people where because happiness is ideally an internal feeling but actually really most of us accidentally maybe subconsciously measure happiness based on comparing ourselves to other people's perceived happiness yeah so i feel like whilst it's a valuable question i actually sometimes feel like it's really like can it be the wrong thing to focus on yeah i think that it's i think we've wrapped we've wrapped happiness up in too much stuff I think happiness is like for me it's contentment it's this feeling that I'm enough I've got enough and everything's great and I think if I would agree by the way contentment and yeah enough yeah but that's for me being like I've I see them as the same in my head they're sort of the same thing and I think that like if there's one thing we all deserve is just to be happy and I think society has told us a different story that that that we've kind of like oh you but don't be happy because if you're happy then you're not driven and you're not pushing you're not going for the next thing you know we get so little time but just like just you just be happy like but you know yeah this is where i can't square this off with you so you know based on your own interviews with your own guests yeah who you are idolizing yeah and think are amazing not as a insult you of course you do they're fucking amazing yeah they all personify the antithesis of what you've just absolutely like so there's this problem problematic cycle where you as the interviewer have the wisdom and the lived experience enough you do and yet you are actually existing in some some form or another the same psychotic cycle in society to be like but i do revere these people and I know that none of them are really happy but we are none of them are happy I feel slightly different because I think we are trying to lift the veil right on high performance and maybe in some ways the high performance does come with obviously the pressure maybe the name is maybe it's not the right name because again it's like what do we attach to high performance when we attach gold medals and big salaries and nice cars and big houses for me high performance is happiness and I have many many people we've spoken to on high performance and I revere some I definitely don't revere others but I'm just interested in people that's why I do that podcast I'm just really fascinated like what is your experience of life maybe 70 % of them maybe more are not happy because the thing that's got them to the place where they're perceived as high performance is the thing that means they never content because no matter what they do there's always another mountain there's always another million there's always another trophy right and then we speak to other people we had a an episode that came out with a guy called Phil Richards who was a regular guy diagnosed with terminal cancer and it changed his mindset to realize the futility of a lot of the stuff that we all wrap ourselves up in right so who's the high performer the high achiever who's not happy or the person that doesn't need to achieve loads of incredible things but is content they have that serenity that happiness inside them and i know that on the surface it might look like we are adding to that conversation about you have to be high performance to be seen as successful but actually i think the message we're trying to put out there is these people are high performers doesn't mean they're happy doesn't mean that you should follow everything they do but there are lessons and learnings to take from them and we're not we there's no like um there's no high performance mindset there's no high performance way of thinking we're just literally speaking to people and you can take and cherry pick and learn and understand some bits you can totally disregard other bits and there are some guests i vehemently disagree with but i never get into a deep debate with them about what i disagree with because that's not what the platform's there for it's there for other people listening to decide what they do or don't agree with.

30:59I mean, the episode that probably made high performance was Johnny Wilkinson, right? Absolutely. Was he happy? He might be happier now. I would argue whether he's happy. He certainly wasn't happy when he was a high performer playing rugby for England. Scores the winning goal in the World Cup. Wins the World Cup for England. Almost like worst moment of his life. Joyful for 30 seconds. And I often think about the Johnny Wilkinson episode. He spent 20 plus years for 30 seconds of joy. Is that a good payoff? There's a Matt Damon thing about this where he won the Oscar for best with Ben Affleck for best screenplay for Good Will Hunting at like 19.

31:45He has the exact basically opposite life experience, which is he gets it, he wins it, he feels all the things. And he's like, a week later, he's like, my God. it's literally just a statue i'm like i'm over that i'm so lucky i've learned that lesson at 18 but what i think i could have spent my whole life waiting for this thing what it shouldn't do is stop people wanting to do great things right if you want to do great things fantastic if you don't that's also absolutely fantastic like it's about your version of high performance right so should you go chasing those moments of glory maybe but don't go chasing those moments of glory thinking that that's going to get you closer to happiness.

32:23I think that achieving things and being happy, we've put them together, but I don't think they should be together. When you were doing all of the sports presenting and like literally basically the list, which is unbelievable, who were you doing that for? I was definitely doing it for myself at that time. Like I loved that. Like I, again, I loved, the reason why I loved being a sports presenter was because I believe it's the hardest job you can do in television. You know, you're wearing an earpiece, you're hearing nine or 10 different voices. You're live on BBC One in front of millions of people.

32:59You're dealing with all the technical stuff that goes on. You know, you're thinking about the lighting, you're thinking about the questions, you're thinking about the guests. You've got a PA in your ear telling you you've got one and a half minutes left. You're trying to remember the graphics that they're due to bring up. You're trying to remember the script you wrote the day before. You're not operating with auto queue you've got a load of other stuff happening around you that could go wrong at any minute you're the conductor you're in charge the challenge mate the challenge is what that was all about the fame the fortune all of the other trappings i could happily do without i love the challenge of being a live sports presenter um and i definitely also loved the fact that i was that little kid from a little village that got bullied and was told i'd never amount to very much and fucked up his a-levels and got fired from mcdonald's and i also enjoyed there's definitely a little bit in the back of me that was going if you could see me now a little bit or yeah not much more 20 right but 80 20 of it was fuck you 60 of it was look at the look at the challenge and the remaining 20 was a sense of adventure i'm a kid from a little village standing in a pit lane in Malaysia talking to one of the most famous Formula One drivers on the planet that's adventure and that's and that is that is thrilling what about now who are you doing it for now I want to say my kids but it's probably still it's probably still for me because it's definitely shifted right so I've got a real my dad was a charity worker so we grew up in a house with this real sense of giving back right that was a really strong part of my upbringing and so definitely the sense of purpose that I have is about is about giving back be much easier not to try and have a charitable foundation and not to have board meetings and trustees and you know we're in the process of trying to set up a gala my goodness it's amazing how helpful people are when you want to put them on your podcast or you want to share a social media post about them or you want to help them out in some way it's incredible how unhelpful people are when you're actually asking them just to do something for charity it amazes me people don't want to do it yeah i run a non-profit as well separately and i have done for 10 years how can people not see so painful yeah it's the hardest because i think i think 90 of the time 90 of people are just doing it for themselves really and people are busy and this is the other thing that's actually always really challenging is like I always try and deal with this question where I'm like you know a good analogy for this I always found is you know back in back when I was younger I used to work in advertising and I worked on the sales side on the sales side you can just never understand why everyone is always such a prick they don't want to buy your stuff and then I worked on the buying side and I was like oh my god okay god I'm inundated I don't even remember I oh I'm so sorry I forgot your email and you suddenly get a bit more empathy to realize the other side and i do that sometimes on on this kind of stuff as well where i'm like why don't people do this i did that thing for them etc and you just forget i mean that person you know their dad's sick or their child's stressed or you know and obviously people are pricks yeah there is a lot of that don't get me wrong i'm not trying to excuse away every but also this is this is your passion i think you have i think we all have to remember that as well this is what you really love so high performance is what i really love why should i expect other people to love it to the level I love it they're not going to so they might do a bit but they're never going to commit to it like I commit to it and I think you have to become comfortable with that so there's probably a good lesson for people there that don't get frustrated with others that don't want to come on the journey to the level that you do because it's yours so you're always going to be more committed to that journey than other people and I think the other thing is how do you work around it you remember that you shouldn't spend your life telling people what they can do for you you should spend your life telling people what you can do for them even if you're asking them for a favor so if i want someone to do something for the foundation or create some content for the app or come and join me on the podcast i should spend 90 of that request telling them why it's a good thing for them rather than why it's a good thing for me um and i think that way you get an awful lot more done and i think there is a there's um have you read a book called the go giver no it's really good so the word sell comes from the ancient english word selen which is to give so selling to someone is giving to someone so it changes your mind about exactly what you just mentioned this idea of being a seller being a seller should be a giver so you you should be able to say to people i'm asking this from you whether it's financial whether it's something else but what i'm going to give you in return is so much more than that i'm not really selling you anything i'm actually giving you something and you might be giving me this in return but look what you're going to get back and it's a very good book like i call bob berg i always recommend it and if a friend comes and stays at my house there's a copy of the go giver sitting on the spare bed for them to take away and it is um the reason why i like it is because i think it also helps to create a society of giving and lifting up and passing along rather than what we exist at the moment which is this mad ass capitalist culture of take take take how much can i own how much can i get how much can i be successful leaves so many people deflated and forgotten about so start giving rather than getting and you will find that you get an awful lot more and you give in a weird way you you talk about the bullying and you talk about the 20 say 20 yeah didn't sound overly sure it sounds like a lot now when you say it well it sounded like you know is it really 20 or is it slightly more than that but we'll call it 20 and yeah this is a reasonable amount yeah have you had the chance to confront any of them have you ever spoken to them again and i'm you know not talking about dming your trolls back i'm talking about having a real conversation with the people that affected you this way i well i live in norwich right so do they um and i haven't you know i haven't had a conversation because i think the thing that i that I remind myself often is that what felt like a massive deal to me didn't feel like a massive deal to them they were just barreling through their school life and they may have spoken to other kids like that or been like that with other people it felt really hugely personal to me but that's that's me really and I honestly think if I said to them you know this happened it made me feel like this I honestly think they would be shocked and the other the other reason not to talk about it is I remember speaking on the podcast with Rangan Chatterjee who said if you'd lived the life they'd lived, you would act in the same way that they'd acted.

39:41And that was really good for me because yeah, I probably, you know, I came from a really understanding, empathetic household, but not everyone comes from that. You know, when I was being bullied, I remember my form teacher, Mr. Pugh, saying to my parents, I think the reason why this is happening is because like Jake's, like, he's really plugged in emotionally to the other kids in the class. He has a, he has a real emotional intelligence that other boys at 13 or 14 just simply don't have so therefore he's a bit of a target mate that that emotional intelligence is exactly what i'm sitting here talking to you now i think um so i can't wish it hadn't happened because i'd be wishing that i was a different person and then i'm changing the entire story of my life so i'm totally cool now with the fact that went on i know that it wasn't horrendous and especially malicious it was kids doing what they shouldn't have done but it was also a big deal for me not a big deal for them and what's the point holding on to it the best thing i can do is feel grateful for the lessons that it taught me and i think i've got to that point it's taken a long time but i'm there because the interesting thing about trauma um and these things you know i read a brilliant book we've got one for you uh The Body Keeps the Score.

40:54Nice. It's amazing. It's about trauma. And it talks about big T trauma and little T trauma. Big T trauma is like, my dad died. And, you know, it deeply affected me. I had depression, all of these things. It's a big T trauma. And as a man, I see that as a traumatic experience. I can accept that I had and I get. And therefore, no, no other traumas in my life. But then it talks about little T traumas. and actually there's a lot of little t traumas that people have and men especially brush them under or never deal with them is the point so the point is not to ignore that they happen not to say uh i'm fine like you know my dad died and other than that nothing happened to me of course it did and what my little t trauma might have had a little impact on me and mean nothing to you or could have been your big t trauma for example so it's very hard to compare yourself so um the reason I'm bringing this up is that little t trauma fascinating because actually it's manifested itself to help you literally become the person that you are yep how do you think other little t or big t traumas have shaped you um and are you even aware of them I think I am aware of them yeah I think that I've reached a point of so you know I can sort of go through from the bullying my grandma taking her own life when I was a teenager was very difficult because you think your grandparents are just sorted you know that was a real big t-trauma for my dad it was his mom you know for the whole family it really was like it didn't feel like it at the time but on reflection how can it not a family suicide is a huge thing for everyone well that's the thing so immediately I hear you say it was a big t-trauma for my dad and maybe it was for me yeah mate yeah I mean I I carry that every day, I think.

42:43How could it not be? Yeah. I think I carry every day that trauma. Being sacked from McDonald's was a little tea trauma. It was embarrassing. But I kind of think it's quite cool now that they sacked me for a lack of communication skills. And look where I am now. Each of those little letters from people telling me that you're not going to make it in television, each one would have been a little, very, very little tea trauma, but a great little injection of, come on, let's make this happen. I remember going all the way to London to audition for Blue Peter, got down to the final four. I thought I was going to make it.

43:12I didn't. I remember the next day they wrote to me, said, it's not you. And here's your show reel back. That was like, ow, another little, a little tea. Um, and then, you know, I had a sort of real mental health breakdown when I first went to London. And I think I was just overwhelmed with going to London, working in telly, leaving home, buying my first flat. It just, it was total overwhelm. And I went to therapy and it was great and that and all of these moments now i'm able to reflect on as really important moments that have shaped what i am and who i am and um i wish some of them hadn't happened but i'm also still able to be grateful for what i learned from those things talking about high performance or a crossover with leadership because it's interesting how you were just defining it like well maybe it's wrong word i suppose you know i'm thinking about it this way what don't you like about leadership you said you're not a good ceo you're not good at that understood a little bit about what you are good at you know it sounds like empathy communication hiring yeah what are you bad at and what don't you enjoy at all what don't you appreciate about leadership i'm i'm not great at difficult conversations you know i'm always treading carefully around those and i um and earn my way through them which I think then gives people this idea that I'm not very sure or very confident about it and I need to work much harder at saying this is what I think and this is why I think and I feel I'm getting better at that and I think that's something that comes with age um I was definitely poor at that at the beginning um I think I'm also um I think I just struggle generally with giving negative feedback I'm really good at trying to say, this is where we can improve.

45:02This is what we could do better. Have we thought about doing this? Have we thought about doing that? I just worry so much about upsetting people by saying, I thought this was rubbish. And I can't even imagine like the look on their, like when I'm thinking about it in my head before I have the conversation, the look on their face when I say, look, this is going to be a hard conversation. I can't even deal with that. And I know it's a weakness of mine, but it's also a weakness of mine that I'm not that interested in solving and getting better at. Because, again, I don't want to have those conversations because I don't like them.

45:34There are other people that are happy to have those conversations. I'd much rather have those people working with me. And listen, call me a wimp, right? That's fine. I'd rather be a positive wimp than a... I've seen a lot of people that are the total opposite. It's interesting. And that's fine to be not great at stuff. Oh, of course it is. I completely agree. My challenge to you there is, but life is about doing hard things as well. Yeah. And there's a great quote. I just, I just shared it in another interview with actually a guy called Charles Duhigg. Oh, yes. Super communicators. Won the, what's the, what did he, what did the prize he's got on his shelf at home?

46:14Like the greatest literary prize you can ever win. Yeah. Oh, yes. So he, obviously great. Lots of fascinating insights on communication, but I was saying to him, something I came across from Adam Grant, which was, um, I'm giving you this feedback. I'm giving you this difficult feedback because I have high expectations of you and I expect you, I expect you to reach them because I know that you can. Yeah. Which really reframes the whole thing. Yeah. I'd still be shit at that. What else do I not like about leadership? I struggle to see myself as a leader really I think How do you think other people see you?

47:00Probably just like some annoying bloke that keeps having these ridiculous ideas and expecting us to deliver them Do you think so? I think so How do other people see me? How do you get feedback from your team? Do you ask for feedback personally? Yes And that I love So what is some good feedback you've had from your team? areas you can improve so the feedback i often get is that they feel i tread the line carefully between getting involved in the things that they're doing and not taking over them like i'm not a control freak i you know i will cede to other people i have i think the area where i am really good is i have really high standards you know i think that i i'm constantly asking people is this the very best work you can do not is this your best work this is the very best work you can do um and it's amazing how often they go well it's nearly it's like let's go make it the very best work we can do i think that my i have high standards um but i think that i deliver my requirement for those high standards in an understanding and empathetic way and actually i would say 90 of the conversations that i have with the people who are on my teams either at whisper or at high performance or some of the other businesses that i sort of advise or i'm invested in is I don't really talk to them about business an awful lot I'm far more interested in how they are as people what's going on in their world what's happening just you know I mean I think one of the most valuable questions I love to ask people is that how do you feel about that thing you know um or how how are you doing I love asking are you happy yeah how are you on a scale of one to ten like if I what's your number and I think you're gonna get an awful lot from from asking that question because people even if you don't see yourself as a leader or anyone in a position of like authority it doesn't mean other people don't I think other people probably do you know I guess when I go in a room people go oh Jake's here I guess that happens I don't see it or feel it but then I think I have to be aware enough to realize that that will mean the answers I get are not necessarily the answers that are true but the answers that people want me to hear so I think it's always good to ask a couple of times over like what's really happening um and i think the final thing is that i just try to be utterly honest like i'm at my age i'm bored with trying to pretend to be someone or something that i'm not and i think that that is actually really helpful you know high performance might not be for everyone i might not be for everyone but the the energy behind it is trying its very best to do the right thing what about negative feedback sorry um i'm actually i'm good with negative feedback yeah as in you're perfect and you haven't had any no as in i like getting it yeah yeah give us some what is some negative feedback that you've had um so negative feedback i don't mean from trolls on the internet oh yeah Well, I've had a lot of that, mate.

50:03Don't worry about that. I don't mean that. That's pointless. So from... Sally from Kent says, don't like the look of him. It gets worse. I know. The most common bit of negative feedback that I get is stop being impatient. I am hugely, hugely impatient, but also overexcited. So if I think something might be good, I won't... I can't wait. like I need to give my feedback instantly rather than sitting with it for a few days and thinking about it and then I wish I hadn't given it because I actually hadn't fully formed it I will put something on my socials about the direction of the business or what we're going to do and then I've got members of my team ringing me going I did we've literally had a meeting last week gone through all of the strategic planning for the whole of 2024 and 2025 the thing that you've just had shared by 100 000 people we never discussed and i'm like sorry man i just got i like got excited it's a it is a problem and i need to just temper things a bit but i got i just can't like someone says to me i need to have a chat are you available wednesday i'm like i'll call you now i can't i can't do that i can't sit with i'm awful with uncertainty i'm a catastrophizer so if something's uncertain i don't think well it could be a great outcome i catastrophize and and i lose days i lose days with thinking about one thing and and then it kills any creativity i had something recent i was worrying about and i felt like it was here in my brain and all of the other good stuff was underneath here so and i was thinking i've got to just get this thing out my head and so i did and it was nothing like as horrendous and catastrophic as i thought it would be it's that mark twain quote which is i've lived through many terrible things in my life almost all of them have never happened yeah and that is and i i i also think that i've got better at that because so i'm also a massive hypochondriac like as soon as there's as soon as my wife says what i'm like as soon as the kids have got my leg aches i'm like oh my god google doctor google same with myself but i think here the lesson is know yourself a bit i know i'm a catastrophizer right so therefore I have to remind myself it's probably not going to be that bad this is you know your brain you know you're like this it's probably not going to be a terminal diagnosis tomorrow you're worrying about it because this is you you do need to slow down and actually think if I share that I'll say that what's the impact on other people you do need to allow other people two or three days to think something over rather than trying to get to the answer immediately just know yourself and i i feel like i do know myself pretty well but i still i still make these mistakes i understand having a you know broadcasting career a career where you've got employers i sort of get that uh cannot square off going into entrepreneurship if you hate uncertainty so much yeah it's ridiculous surely you must have built some resilience towards it by now um i haven't i don't think i've built i don't think i've built resilience to the oh that's just such a good question mate it's a really really good question there are some things i've built resilience to right but there are some things that i haven't and the potential for everything to unravel and unwind i haven't i haven't done that like that's just my brain i had a conversation with martin lewis and he's exactly the same he's like there's something on the horizon he just sees it could empty out everything that he's ever built and worked for and so that's probably why let's let's probably work this out why am i not the ceo probably that because i then i look to those people i look to sunnell who runs whisper i look to josh who runs high performance i look to george who runs coral eyewear and i'm like what do you think and as soon as they say i think that'll be fine i'm like great because you've got a sensible brain on this so i can allow that to go we talked a lot about high performance talk to me about higher performance come on how do you hire good teams uh well i don't hire people right i collect people and like a psychopath no hopefully not but maybe maybe that's why i haven't collected more people keep giving you yeah i've had none of that none of that so there's a few things to pick out here I think the first thing is you have to go into any recruitment moment or process with your eyes open right that the chances of you advertising a job and someone who is perfect for that job and available for that job sees that job meets you and you feel that they're both right for it like what is the is it in truth it's about 0.5 percent right so when I look at all of the really interesting people that I partner with I promise you I've collected all of them I've stumbled into them I've met them right and I know then that feels unhelpful because you're like well I fucking I'll meet loads of people that doesn't really help me hire people Jake right so Sunil I work with when we presented or I presented Formula One and he was one of the producers on the Formula One coverage I've never met someone who has the creative abilities that he does with the organizational abilities that he does incredible and I knew there was something special about him and you will know when you meet people where there's something special um david caulthard we asked to be involved in whisper right from the very early days partly because when we first started nobody would give us any work it was really difficult actually because we had worked in sports broadcasting for years and suddenly we were trying to get work producing sports content for mainstream channels and the people who we'd work with our colleagues were not giving us the work and we would ask them why like why have you why have you completely passed us over for that and they would say well because whisper's a new business we can't give this huge opportunity to a new business and we're like yeah but oh it's us forget about the name above the door it's us like can't you see that so then we made it our mission to to hire people right and those people that we hired were solving a problem for us so we thought right who are the people really trusted in the industry who do itv love working with who do the bbc love working with who do channel 4 love working with let's go and get them um and it got to the point where one of the channels rang us up and said i can you pay these people you keep hiring i couldn't believe it and i was like well you're making people redundant at the moment but that gave you an idea of what they thought of us you know they honestly mate thought why is that producer and presenter trying to do this do they really think that they can set up a business and be credible players in the tv industry so that was a really interesting learning curve for me um that people have no imagination and you have to try and solve a problem for them so that was how we hired at whisper me and sonal met each other david came on board partly because of his contacts in the commercial space but crucially we wanted the dna of a formula one team in that in that business and we have that to this day there is not a single production company in the uk that runs itself like us where you have to wear the whisper uniform like you're a member of a formula one team where we focus on marginal gains where we just make shit happen all the time where we think massive massive big huge like totally out there and then find a way to make it happen marginal gains is massive in whisper so he was really important for us so that's how we hire in whisper because in some ways you're hiring for skill right in that world if i think about how i hire for the things that I want to do.

57:40Like high performance. High performance is a great example, right? Some friends came, well, some friends moved into the, well, some people moved into the village where we live a couple of years ago and we met them and I started chatting to this guy called Josh. He was working for Vivino at the time, you know, the YNAP. And we just got chatting and I thought, what an interesting guy. I really like him. Eventually he became the CEO of high performance. living over the road was two friends of ours called ollie and chloe and she worked for street child the this amazing charity that works in africa and other parts of the world and she had a kid and left and then was looking for something else and i was like i think you're fantastic let's think about creating a foundation my wife went to school with this girl called hannah who worked at a local school in norwich and i was looking for my first ever ea and i chatted to Hannah and Harriet was a bit like oh this is like a friend of like one of her best friends and she's gonna know what we're earning and what our banker can do you know it's quite personal could it should it be someone else but I was like no this I got a feeling about Hannah I think she's great she's no longer my EA she's now the chief operating officer of high performance Will who's the chief creative officer of high performance worked for my agency there was loads of people working for my agency but there was something about this guy I thought yeah I really like I really like his attention to detail and his ability to get stuff done and then I was on holiday last week and I met someone who I won't say his name because I've decided I'm going to try and hire him if I can because we just we spoke on a level and and partly this is really unhelpful right because you don't you can't just say well meet people if you like them hire them that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is meet when you meet people you can you know pretty quick I do anyway whether this person is going to be a friend or not a friend right whether you relate to each other so that's the first hurdle once they're a friend i do think that there are certain friends where they operate in a world where you know they could be part of your world well i've got a friend who works for aviva he wouldn't ever want to come and work on high performance and his skill set would never work it's fine and that's cool but he's a one of my best friends but there are other friends where i think i think you could be so good if if we started working together so then you need to start just talking and imagining yourself in that workplace with that person and and and I think you then have to make a decision like should we just go for this should we just give this a go and I think that's my final bit of advice really I think when you're hiring someone and you're just putting an advert out and you're bringing someone in and you're trying to find the right person the truth is if you get the wrong person it can take 12 18 months to unpick that mistake because you've got to first of all work out they're wrong then you've got to work out an exit package then you've got to let them exit then you've got to try and find the person you were trying to find in the first place well why can't that probationary period if let's call it that why can't that be while your mates why can't you just start meeting people chatting do you want to do what maybe let's go for dinner let's chat about it and you get to a point where you know it's not going to be a mistake to bring that person into the business i also get that this works for a business the size of high performance right um and we are now hiring people that i haven't met i'm cool with that because i'm not a control freak and the reason why i'm cool with that is because the people that are doing the hiring are the people that i met and hired so i totally trust them to then go and do their do their thing it's almost like this is the perfect way to operate at the beginning because then if you get that core team right you can actually trust that they're gonna they're going to go and bring in the right kind of people and trust is actually the most important thing to figure out at the beginning you do need skills but skills can be learned but attitude and trust uh which are things you you you i completely agree you will learn those things by attitude attitude over ability yeah every single day of the week so the ceo on high performance has never been a ceo before the ceo at whisper was never a ceo before the chief operating officer at whisper was a marketing boss at a local school that like it's it's not about ability it's not about your cv it's not about your previous experience it's about your attitude um and that you know if there's one thing that you need to be hiring for is attitude at the level of high performance the kind of guests you have yeah always on schedule cadence etc do you worry like how to keep really high quality content going there i i don't actually because i i feel that we've only scratched the surface you know we um there are so many interesting people with so many fascinating stories i don't doubt that the world is changing at the rate that top level where you know i think there is yeah i think i think so you know like desert island discs has been going for how many years totally but that's a format you know yeah absolutely and but i sort of feel that high performance is kind of a it's just will we ever get to the point where our where people are not interesting no will we ever get to the point where everyone's listened to high performance no is there constantly new people are getting to the age where they're interested in this kind of stuff yes so there's always a new audience coming through i honestly dan i feel we're i feel high performance is five percent of where it can be i in 10 years time i want it to be a globally known performance brand that is in your hand every day on the app genuinely getting you closer to high performance not just with content but with tools and tips and techniques and things that you can do i want people to be watching it anywhere in the world on youtube saying this is the most fascinating deep insight into human beings i've ever seen i want people across the world taking part in physical activity events i want kids in every school having an hour of high performance lessons every week where they see the conversations on the podcast i want to create a whole generation of resilient determined mindful thoughtful well-rounded and balanced young people or to help create those people i i'm hugely i'm hugely excited for it and the only thing that will stop it is if i run out of energy i guess you know that i was gonna ask that like you know fast forward five years and high performance is no more why um because we made mistakes i guess um i struggle to see that because i think that even if all of the grand moonshots that i'd love to do don't come off high performance will be there like high performance i want to be having these conversations even if even if they're less often even if they're twice a month and i do a days work a month in my 70s man I want to be having these conversations with people because I'm hoping that you know I have a real I always find it strange when people don't have an interest in other human beings right and so I hope that in my 70s I'm still I still have that interest in what makes people tick and why they do things and how they do it and when and where so even if it's only a couple times a month I still think that in my 70s I'll still be having these conversations I I hope to never retire from high performance.

1:05:00What does high performance mean to you? Happiness, contentment, serenity. It means finding your own version of high performance. It means being kind to yourself. It means realizing that you're not perfect and you shouldn't be perfect. And it also means realizing that so much in society is set up to trip us up at the moment. and if you can just be strong enough to find your own way through that and not get pulled down by the negative headlines not get confused by the toxic messaging on social media not be derailed by constantly comparing yourself to other people's success not be held back by your own ambition and feeling that you're not you're not good enough or you're not doing well enough or you're not moving fast enough just know that like your path is your path and it will sometimes look fucking great and it will sometimes look like a right failure but it's yours and you'll be fine that's that is high performance for me sorry it's not one word thank you jake that was awesome thank you mate i really enjoyed it it was a nice chat that was my conversation with jake humphrey do you feel like you've been looking at this whole success thing backwards if jake's words resonated with you as much as they did with me, do me a quick favor and share this episode with a friend or colleague who could use a perspective shift.

1:06:28If you're hungry for ideas from the best and brightest leaders, come join us over on YouTube. Just search for Secret Leaders Podcast on YouTube and don't forget to subscribe.