Are We Part of the ‘Optimisation Podcast’ Problem?

0:02Hi there, welcome along to another episode of High Performance by myself and Damian. Hey, buddy. Hi, Jake. You all right? Very good. This is an episode where we just sit and we talk about something that's on our minds. And there's something that's been on our minds for the last couple of weeks. You and I have been WhatsAppping each other, talking about it in person. And to be honest, it's a slightly uncomfortable question, right? And the question is, are we part of the problem? Are we part of the grind set problem? Are we part of the grind slop issue that seems to be washing over everyone these days?

0:34Because when we first started High Performance, and this episode is going to take a little bit of vulnerability, a lot of honesty, and quite a lot of reflection. When we started this, we were fascinated, right, by winning. That was why we both came together, by routine, by sacrifice, by discipline, by marginal gains. We spoke all the time, didn't we? Marginal gains, marginal gains. And we were interested in what extraordinary people did differently. And there's no doubt that some of that has certainly changed my life. You would probably argue the same. Some of it has changed your life. But then somewhere along the way, high performance almost became something else, right?

1:09Not from us, but from other people. That this show stood for waking up earlier, working harder, sleeping less, optimizing, never being satisfied. And I think outside of this show in the real world, we've got to the point when it comes to optimization where suffering has become something to sell. so we have to ask ourselves did we in some small way feed into that narrative that now seems to be everywhere because after hundreds of conversations with extraordinary people i don't think the high performance means now what it once meant to us so today we're going to explain where we came from the things that maybe we got wrong also what we've changed our minds about and what we actually want high performance to stand for in 2026 2027 and beyond so we should start by talking about where the idea for this episode came from right yeah we've been thinking about it for a while but there was one thing that was a catalyst yeah there was a catalyst it was a

2:03Jake Humphrey: we stumbled upon uh jamie lang uh having a conversation with uh the brilliant comedian rob beckett where rob um expressed his distaste let's say for this optimization grind set culture and named us yeah as part of it so should we have a listen to the clip let's do exactly that yeah I'll let this one off because you're nice okay no self-improvement high performance or Stephen Bartlett optimising podcast eat shit I don't want to be optimised I want to do as little as possible for as much money as possible and go on holiday so there he is Rob Beckett being I mean hilarious as always and being great company on Jamie Lang's excellent podcast which is called great company.

2:53But the reason why I think we felt compelled to record this episode is that as hilarious as Rob Beckett is, and I think none of us would disagree actually with what he said. Like, it does feel like there's a real overwhelm of sort of grind set messaging at the moment, but also we feel that where we are these days, we're not actually part of that conversation. So I don't know, maybe he's wrong, maybe we're wrong. And I think it's one for us to explore.

3:18Jake Humphrey: Well, I like that old Barack Obama quote when he used to say, how can we understand each other if we're just waving our fists? We have to connect. And I think when I heard Rob sort of lumping us in to that category, it made me sort of reflect because when I've read some of Rob's stuff, like he brought a great book out a few years ago where he spoke about his own journey to become a brilliant comedian where he was working in a job for an events company and he was gigging two or three gigs a night and working really hard to do it. And then he spoke about how he's had to now protect his mental health from the overwhelm of all his brilliant opportunities.

3:56Jake Humphrey: I really found common ground with him and thought that what he was describing was where we were as a podcast. So I think the fact that Rob doesn't see that is indicative of how so many people sort of would get the messaging wrong. I think the name of the podcast, High Performance, sort of makes people think it's constantly about having to be number one, being the best, constantly being at the top of the charts, whereas what we've discovered is something very different over that journey. Discovered. This is what I think is important, because actually what Rob said about our show, he is completely right, I think, if we go back to the 2019-2020 version.

4:39And this is actually before it was being spoken about a lot. I think, certainly from my perspective, I think if we rewind the clock, I was keen to sell the message that if you get up at five, I mean, I once wrote a social media post on LinkedIn about getting up at five o 'clock. It's one of my biggest regrets because I, like, I literally don't believe it anymore. Yeah. And I hate the fact that I still kind of get lumped in as, oh, you're the 5am grind set guy. And I'm like, no, like, yes, at that point in my life, it was really valuable for me to be out of bed early and to be pushing. And, but it also costs me a lot.

5:10Yeah. and now I realize that and I would hate I actually now would it would make my skin crawl to think that that's the kind of message that I'm putting out there you know but get up at five be exhausted sacrifice your weekends miss dinners push for more if you're not successful you don't want it badly enough take full responsibility it's no one else's fault but you and I did believe that for a long time but the truth is I think that what we've learned through the conversations we've had that pain isn't proof of progress and that being exhausted is not a badge of honor and actually there's a huge cost to thinking that that is the case so can we start by rewinding to one of our early conversations so you so we can allow people to actually hear what we were thinking or certainly

5:51Jake Humphrey: what i was thinking at that time well let's do that but let's just again illustrate that when we like before we recorded the first ever interview we did we went down to portsmouth didn't we and we sat outside ben ainsley's headquarters and do you remember that little greasy spoon cafe we went and sat in and we were talking about what do we think we're going to get out of this jake and we both came to the conclusion we thought we're going to hear an awful lot of um sporting equivalents of the al pacino inch by inch speech didn't we we were anticipating it'd be about that's also what i wanted though yeah because that's the hollywood myth that we got sold that's the idea of that's what people love people are going to attach to it so we both sat there and anticipated we were going to get that kind of Hollywood myth of what high performance really was.

6:37Jake Humphrey: So I think we went into it almost conditioned to look for that. We were exploring that. That was what we were excited about. So why don't we listen to one of the first conversations we had with Stephen Bartlett. We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners. What if the real question isn't where you're going, but the adventures you experience along the way? It's time to set your sights higher. On peaks still to be climbed, rivers still to be crossed, and greater dreams to pursue. It's time to embrace the impossible with Defender. A family of vehicles built around capability, durability, tested on some of the most difficult terrain, Defender defines tough luxury.

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7:54Jake Humphrey: You know, he's a great podcaster, but he was at the start of his career, wasn't he? He'd left his business in Manchester and he was on this journey of wanting to really start to elevate Diary of a CEO. And he told us about his own origin story growing up in Plymouth and sort of having this sense that he could do anything. But when you listen to the clip, I'm the one enforcing certain views on him. I'm just like going off on one here. Have a listen. A lot of people will come to me on social media and say, I really want to work in TV. I've just started a media degree. What's your advice? My advice is always the same.

8:34Don't expect that media degree is going to get you a job. Be different to everybody else. And if anyone listening to this is at this point where they're looking for, they're maybe 18, 19, they're looking for their thing, my advice is always don't do what 16 ,000 other media students are doing every year, which is leave university with a degree, go for an interview and go, there's my degree. find the thing that separates you from everybody else write stuff for free for your local paper record again and again and again you either to camera if you want to be on the telly or using a microphone if you want to be on the radio and then go to your friends and ask them to be searingly honest about whether it's shit or whether it's good and keep on doing it and then when you go in for your first interview instead of just saying well i'm like everyone else i've just done the same route you can say well i've done this off my own back this is what i've done this is what separates me from everybody else and that is absolutely the biggest lesson i think isn't it if you're like everybody else you'll end up where everybody else is yeah what do they say the final mile is the one that gets walked the least yeah because everyone stops so that's that's the kind of conversations that we were having and let's remind ourselves that we were having those conversations arguably long before a lot of other people were having them and they were kind of successful so people were telling us that they love this stuff.

9:51And this is where we just need to sort of connect a few dots, right? Because there is a huge amount of value in commitment. There is a period where you get high rewards for sacrifice. There is no doubt about it that high standards, higher than other people can separate you from the rest of the pack. Mark Webber, average is easy. That's why it's popular. So I guess one of the things that was a tug of war for me for a long time was this idea that if you don't believe those things, how can you how can you stand out how can you be successful does that make sense well yeah but and and let's

10:25Jake Humphrey: not deny that like that's where the phrase world-class basics came from not from us from sir Ian McGeehan that was talking about what he defined world-class performance was in in the British and Irish Lions setup was you've got to be good at the world-class basics you've got to be able to run you've got to be able to throw the ball you've got to be able to tackle and pass so let's not overlook the basics of you know how many of our guests have said to us like a non-negotiable be on time because it just feels disrespectful when you show up late or how many people have spoken about be polite because you need other people to lift you up so these are all things that sound very obvious but they have to be there like high performance isn't just about being good on one particular day we've seen it's about consistency and the basics we you can dub it as the sort of grind set.

11:16Jake Humphrey: But ultimately, you do need to be good at the basics. So let's not throw that out in this culture of sort of demonizing that kind of thinking. Okay, so where is the sort of healthy line then? If we're saying that you need to have high standards, world-class basics, you need to commit, you do need to be better than other people to stand out. Where's the balance between that and the kind of more toxic element of this, which is if you're saying those things, there is also an element where you're telling people that they're not enough. But then it also comes back to the same, the sort of similar conversation where you're like, well, you need to be enough.

11:54Like if you're not enough, you need to become enough. You need to work harder. You need to commit more. It's such a difficult sort of balancing act to get right, I think.

12:02Jake Humphrey: Well, to me, like a real seminal moment, Jake, was when Maro Otoji sat down with us, when he was the first guest that called us out, didn't he? When we started with the question, what is high performance to you? and he said, can I just ask for a definition? Are you asking for high performance or are you asking for world-class performance? Because world-class is a set of objective measures that you're striving to get to. If you're going to be a world-class sprinter, you need to be running under 10 seconds. High performance is subjective. It's if your best is 12 seconds and you're running that, well, that's high performance for you.

12:36Jake Humphrey: And I think that line is about getting people to recognize their best, not being the best. And that's where I think that distinction is a really important one to draw. That's really interesting. Well, let's play another clip because there's something else that I feel about this, but I want to play this clip first. And this was when we spoke to Ant Middleton, who, again, it was a really early episode. Was this like the second episode of the first? So this is the first series, episode number two. So this is going right back like six years. And I know that, you know, since we recorded this conversation, Ant Middleton is no longer everyone's cup of tea.

13:12In fact, there was a newspaper article recently trying to kind of, it was basically trying to be critical of me. And the way it managed to do that was by picking out two or three guests that they didn't see eye to eye with to kind of make out what kind of a show we were. And it said, it's the kind of podcast that interviews Ant Middleton is what they said, which I think is really interesting, right? But let's have a listen to what Ant told us in the very early days of high performance. what is your definition Anthony of high performance a self-belief it's um it's key to everything in life I think um that comes with brutal honesty of oneself you have to be honest with yourself um but self-belief only comes through um realizing where your boundaries are your limitations are, suffering, hardship.

14:06It's one of those where failure, believe it or not, again, I don't want to sound too cliche. Failure is the key to self-belief because if you can fail and get back up and re-attack and fail and get back up and re-attack, but learn something every single time from that experience, you will eventually get there if you believe in it enough. And then once you start to get there, once you start to realize, actually, I'm a lot more resilient than I thought I was, self-belief starts to kick in. And once you nail self-belief, it almost, but to a point where it hits that ego line, that's when you can achieve amazing things.

14:44And that's when not much phases you because you generally believe that you can achieve anything that you put your hand to. You know, I believe that if a human has done it in life, then I can achieve it, whether it's climbing to the top of the world, whether it's running a hundred meters, under 10 seconds. I generally believe that if I train hard enough and I put the time and effort into it, that I could achieve that. I'm a firm believer in people separating fault and responsibility. We constantly look at fault. We don't take responsibility. I believe in the growth mindset. I hate the victim culture.

15:20And I believe that you 100 % take responsibility for every single thing that happens in your life, right? Positive or negative. But you are so many miles ahead of me. It's unbelievable. I came into this thing and I've got this nailed man jeez I've got a long journey to go on

15:36Jake Humphrey: so when you hear yourself there Jake using that line at the end about having a long way to go when you reflect on it now six years later how do you feel about it? well I think I did have a long way to go but I didn't necessarily go in the direction that the 2020 version of Jake thought that he should go go on where I sit now is that I still believe high standards are absolutely vital keeping promises to yourself, doing difficult things, showing up when you don't feel like it, refusing to drift. Like I can see all of the value in that stuff. I think where this becomes a problem is that the grind set mindset actually takes those things, but removes any balance from your life.

16:18It's like, it's telling you that whatever you've done, more is always better. It's kind of saying that, I suppose I think that high standards asks something of you, grindslop asks everything of you. And that we were lucky enough to go and meet the special forces. Again, really early in our journey, we got a phone call and we got invited to RF Bryson Norton. We went on a special forces helicopter. We traveled down to Hereford where they're based and we got the chance to speak to them and we did a presentation for them. Now, there's a reason why they asked us to do that. Some of the content that we were creating at that time was like an all-in 100 % responsibility mindset.

16:58I think what was really helpful on that day was when we spoke to them and we said, what is the biggest thing that you're suffering with? They said exactly what I think this constant grind conversation creates, which is they said, whatever we do is not enough. And so we had this really cool conversation with them where we sort of challenged the special forces to say at the end of their mission debriefs, okay, those are all the things that didn't go right. Those are the areas we could have improved. Can we just have a moment, please, to talk about where we did do well? And I'm really proud that we had that conversation Do you remember the emotion in the room when we said, how often do you reward yourselves or praise yourselves for what you have achieved?

17:33And they were like, well, never. When we left, so many of the operatives were stopping us going, thank you so much for saying that, because we needed to hear that, that we are actually enough. Even though we can still be more, we've also done our best. Yeah, yeah.

17:48Jake Humphrey: Yeah, well, again, give the context to it, that when I got the initial phone call from the special forces when we spoke to them, the episode that resonated really deeply with them was our conversation with Stephen Hendry, where Stephen spoke about this idea of the mission, in his case, of becoming the world's greatest snooker player was everything at the expense of family, friends, and other relationships. And they said that they felt it was the first time they'd heard somebody speak so openly about the mentality and the mindset that they had that when they're on a job, nothing interferes with the mission.

18:24Jake Humphrey: So they felt it almost liberated them to be able to recognize that what they were doing was special. But isn't that also important that we, like, we can't just say that this A is the answer and B is not the answer. It's like, there's a time in your life when A is the answer, when 100 % commitment, selfishness, like sacrificing everything that's important to you to get the job done. there was like if you're in the special forces or you know in many other walks of life there's actually a moment where you that you do have to do that like there's a moment for commitment the risk is saying that that should be your entire life yeah i mean well personally having met the guys i sleep sound in my bed knowing there's people out there willing to go to yeah the extreme to protect us yeah yeah you know but then having met some of the other guys that have been in the forces they've recognized that like maybe post their career at the sharp edge they do need to go back and connect they do need to be surrounded by people that love them they do need to be reminded of the qualities that they have that they bring to other aspects of their life so i think you touched on something really powerful jake i think one of the phrases that we've often spoke about here is the work that happens in the shadows it's not the spotlight stuff it's not the outcome it's the process that you use to get there and i think there's very rarely in life um binary answers of this is right and this is wrong and who are we to tell anybody that what they're doing is right or wrong is is it right or wrong for you at this moment that's for you to decide and i think trying to sort of shift that conversation of giving people the idea that high performance is a binary set of measures and if you're not hitting it you're not enough is part of that grind tech culture that leads to just sickness and burnout and a general sense of unhappiness what we're trying to do is get give people the tools to use them in their own life to go after what they want their ambitions and their goals something else that i haven't really thought about until now is i wonder whether what was happening in the world also impacted this for us because if you remember we launched early 2020 lockdown came a few weeks later yeah and i kind of feel like um that part of certainly i don't know about you but my thinking came from like we're all locked down at home we're all out of control here no one knows what's around the corner how can we help people to gain a sense of control i think that's where the 100 responsibility mindset came from you know um no one's coming to save you that life is all about you it's all about your commitment whatever you put in is what you get out i think it was almost like a kind of like scrabbling for control at that time what brilliant point i hadn't thought of it yourself but again like nothing happens in a vacuum does it so we're being influenced by world events at the time i mean if we just go back to the ant middleton clip though that i get what you're saying that like the narrative maybe is turned on him from being sort of a guy that was doing these stage shows where lots of young men were getting benefits and now people are sort of hearing his political messages and maybe um being opposed to it some of the stuff he said that was brilliant you know like oh absolutely that's the thing we have to like this is this conversation is about balance it's not heaven or hell yeah no like that bit that resonates with me is a bit when he talks about he was in court for attacking a police officer and his lawyer had said to him, when was your last tour of duty?

22:03Jake Humphrey: I can get you off. I'll tell you that you had PTSD. You've served in combat for this country. You don't have to go to prison. And he refused to use it as an excuse. He went, no, I did it. And I need to face the consequences of it. Like that to me is a really powerful message of going, you can do whatever you like, but you've got to live with the consequences of it. And that idea of being adverse to making excuses was something that I thought was really powerful, and I still do now. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I think what's happening in the world, though, now is nuances being removed by the fact that our lives are determined by algorithm.

22:37And if people listen to this go, oh, my life's not determined by an algorithm, like I'm afraid it is. You know, the only way that a Sam Altman or an Elon Musk is going to make money is if you are on their platforms a lot of the time. And the only way to keep you on their platform is to trigger you some way, whether it's in a positive or a negative light. And the only way to trigger people is to have polarizing views. So the world is pushing us towards love or hate. We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners. When we were kids, summer meant freedom. No homework, no teachers, no school.

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24:46And it's like, how about you can agree and disagree with our view in the same sentence, with Ant's view, with Stephen's view, with every guest that's ever joined us on this podcast, you can disagree and agree in the same conversation. And I think as we've evolved, for me, that's almost what we've become to stand for here. It's like, we are the nuance in a world without any nuance. And then people don't know how to react to that. So, you know, the, the, the place where I still get a lot of criticism is on X, right? Formerly Twitter, but that's a self-selecting group of people that choose to go on that platform and share with each other clips out of context or an opinion.

25:30Like, I mean, ridiculous, like really like critical stuff, like the worst person on the internet or something. And it's like, you guys are just in a silo here, making yourselves feel better about this stuff. but we also have to understand that that's the world now. Yeah, yeah. We're driven by a system that provides an opportunity for people to have those views, and people get rewarded for having those views because lots of people see it and they feel great. Fair enough.

25:57Jake Humphrey: There's a lovely term that is sometimes used about our thinking, Jake, where psychologists sometimes say our brain is a cognitive miser. And what it means is it doesn't want to waste energy seeing a different perspective or thinking of the nuances. is I just need a quick, easy answer and I need to be able to lump you in with it. And I think one of the things that we're experiencing, if you go back to that clip of Jamie and Rob talking, is it's almost the idea of it's easier and quicker to lump high performance in with this grind site culture, this constant over-optimisation. So I understand why that has happened.

26:33But one of the things that you said to me really early on

26:36Jake Humphrey: when we were working together, and I love it because I think this is what we're doing now, you spoke about how politicians are derided when they change their mind or business leaders you turns backtracking yeah yeah the language backtracking flip-flopping you um so you turns whereas when we've spoken to people like professor brian cox who said actually celebrate being wrong because being wrong just means you've got more information that allows you to make a more informed decision i think this is what we're trying to do with not offer people answers or solutions because there are very few of them out there but give them different perspectives and say does this help you at this moment in time if it does take it if it doesn't don't worry about it discard it yeah should we hear another clip yeah who do you think i want to play a clip from johnny wilkinson because he's the guy that changed the way that we yeah saw what high performance stood for we'll play this but I think what's interesting here is the way that I kind of tried to frame a conversation for him at the very beginning so let's let's have a listen to this you said unfortunately there though when you were talking about it like unfortunately I was obsessed with being perfect and I loved elite sport isn't there an element though of fortunately I was obsessed with being perfect and I loved elite sport because I was of the opinion that the reason why you became the leading rugby player of your generation was the combination of obsession and love for the sport.

28:03Yeah, yeah, maybe. Or was it in spite of that, that you still got to the top?

28:08Jake Humphrey: No, it's all in there. I'm sure it's all in there.

28:14But it was a classic journey towards heading down a dark hole.

28:21Jake Humphrey: There's no other way for it to go. because and the inevitable part of that cycle is as I was succeeding a bit more I was reinforcing those old ideas they were getting stronger and stronger and stronger and you could hear it in the way I was speaking and I call that doesn't matter what those ideas are whether they're negative or positive about yourself when they get reinforced they become more important therefore call that self-importance knowing who you are with more and more surety becomes self-importance and that self-importance was clearly evident in everything I spoke about. The thing was is I just created an idea as most people do that that state is revealed or earned through great suffering and sacrifice so there seems to be this deep understanding which I've explored and experienced otherwise since that by suffering and stressing and fighting you somehow end up in a joyful flowing state whereas my understanding my own experience of it tended to be that by spending my time suffering stressing and sacrificing what I did was create stronger habits of suffering stressing and sacrificing it's a bit like the whole kind of you know when I grow up when I get my car when I get my promotion when I get my family when I get my big house when I get to retirement that's when my joy is going to hit me when I've got enough money but then even when you've got the boat in the sunny port, you're still suffering and stressing for the next thing.

29:53Jake Humphrey: And unfortunately, there's become a new one, which has taken shape more recently, which is going to leave no opportunity for turning inward, which is people now think that leaving a legacy after once they've gone was what bring joy. I mean, it's ludicrous. And that's kind of where I was, you know, my whole rugby career was like, I'm going to suffer through this because I'm going to leave the greatest mark. It's like, well, what happens to just flourishing and enjoying and loving life there i am saying to me there's an element of fortunately i was obsessed now i think with the conversation that we're having it's easy to assume that i'm gonna say um oh i should never have said fortunately i'm obsessed because obsession is bad i think it's really important to be clear here that what we are not saying is that obsession is bad i was at an event a couple days ago and there was there was a talk by the head of ai for the united space force wow and And she had two slides.

30:48The first slide said, the world is really changed by people who care a reasonable amount. And the second one said, find a problem worthy of your obsession, then refuse to be reasonable about solving it. And that was an event called the Heads of 100. And it was 100 of the sort of brightest minds in business and AI and what the world might look like in the future. And everyone was obsessed. They were obsessed with the thing, the problem they wanted to solve, the business they wanted to build, the issues they wanted to fight on. So I think we also have to be really careful here. And I'm not going to sit here and say, oh my God, I really regret, you know, saying that Johnny should have been obsessed.

31:27Of course he should have been obsessed because if he wasn't obsessed, I don't think he would have been the rugby player that he was.

31:32Jake Humphrey: Can I challenge you a bit? Because there's research on this that, like when we talk about passion, like that's a phrase, and there's been research that talks about there's two types of passion. There's obsessive and harmonious. so obsessive is where it it controls you it takes your time it takes your energy it takes your focus harmonious is that you control that you know when you can switch it on you know where you can use it to its best advantage but you know where you can leave it and allow space for other things in your life and yeah and i'm not disputing that these people were passionate i think what you're seeing is they're passionate but they have a harmonious passion they control i don't think they do though.

32:12What was the first version? Obsessive or how are you? No, they're totally obsessive. Right. And that's why if you go into a room of a lot of business founders or some of the highest performing people on the planet and a lot of people we've spoken to here, mental health is prevalent. Divorce is prevalent. Poor relationships with their children is prevalent. Loneliness is prevalent. But at the same time, those people have done things that have changed the world and they have achieved the dream that they wanted. Now, it's not for us to decide that they're right or wrong in what they're doing. I think the only job we have here is to say, look, there are people, and this is what I would say to my kids, there are people utterly obsessed about something, like obsessed about something.

32:53If you are really obsessed about something, there's a strong chance that obsession is going to help you to eventually get to where you want to go with it. But don't mistake that achieving that thing is going to give you a joy or a happiness that you're searching for. Quite often, the obsession comes at an inordinate cost. However, without it, you may well not reach where you want to go. So you then have to make the decision for yourself that it doesn't come for free. Equally, the harmonious obsession is one that I think, personally, I think it's there, certainly for someone like me, later in life, where you've actually done the obsessive stuff and realise that it doesn't bring you very much joy.

33:38And therefore you still want to enact change, you still want to do stuff you're passionate about, but the cost is too much. Brilliant.

33:47Jake Humphrey: So context, again, is key. One of my favourite books, it's about 25 years old now, was written by a guy called Felix Dennis. He was a publishing magnate and the book was called How to Get Filthy Rich. Yeah. So it hooks you in for the title. Even the title now, though, feels bleh, doesn't it? Yeah, but that's it. It hooks you in. you think it's about wealth and privilege and status and things like that. And it's none of those things. But what he does brilliantly is he gives you the context. He says, read this book in the context that you're in. So he starts by going, if you're aged 16 to 22, do everything in this book.

34:25Jake Humphrey: Just be obsessed about doing everything because it'll set you up brilliantly. And then he goes through the different ages. is he goes, if you're a middle-aged man and you're between 40 and 55, read this book for enjoyment. Pick a few ideas from it, but do not take it because by this stage of your life, there's a good chance you're in a relationship, you might have a family, you've got a mortgage, you've got responsibilities. So the advice of throwing it all up in the air and going all in probably isn't healthy for you. And I think it's that idea of, again, just allowing that context is key. if you're young and you've got the energy and you want to go be obsessive for a period of time to become world class at the basics that allow you to then understand how you can change the world do it if that's what if you understand the price that will come as it if you're getting a bit older and you go actually that's not as important to me the status as having kids that want to spend time with me when they don't have to understand that then there is still a message here I think like remember when we had James Milner on and he talks and actually Jordan Henderson and probably every other elite professional footballer they've spoken about their obsession at a young age and I look at my boy and he plays 10 minutes of football in the garden and I'm like he's got a game on Sunday or whatever and I say are you going to do some extra training for the game on Sunday he's like oh I did 10 minutes last week and it's like Sebastian at 11 doesn't understand the levels that other people have operated at to get where they wanted to go and you have to you have to acknowledge that, you know, these elite people at a very young age were obsessive.

36:01I kind of wish that when I was 16, 17, 18, where I was getting fired from jobs, failing school exams, getting drunk with my mates, moping around in my bedroom, I wish I'd been obsessed at that age. I wish I'd found something that lit me up to such an extent. Because I'm jealous of those people who are like, wow. And I don't know whether you look at George and Rose and think, I hope you're obsessed, because I do with my kids because I think it's a consequence of finding something you're super passionate about

36:28Jake Humphrey: yeah I'd probably say I want them to find things that they're passionate about but if I if I had any say in it it'd probably be that harmonious passion that I also want to be but if they're so what if they're passionate about I don't know um being a setting up their own business well my son is right so what if he then spends five minutes a day on it and thinks that's enough are you not going to then say to him listen buddy there's a point in your life where you're going to be older and have less energy you're going to have kids you'll want to prioritise them there's a point in your life where you are not the most important person in the room you know because in your house as a dad of two you're the fourth most important person in the house I'm fifth after our dog Bell right but that's not the case when you're 16, 17, 18 you're allowed to be the most important person in your world in your life in your house at that point so I almost am like I think at that age this stuff is kind of powerful.

37:21Jake Humphrey: Yeah, but I almost want to create an environment where they recognize it themselves. So me telling them is one thing. I can point them in the direction of it, but actually you've got to go and discover it yourself. So my son started designing websites and pitching it to local cafes, saying I'll build you a website. And he went into the first one and he came back out. He didn't win the contract, if you want to say it like that. and he didn't go back for a while and i said why not and his answer was i wasn't ready i learned i'd gone in too early i didn't have the knowledge to be able to deliver it so is that true thing or was he a bit embarrassed and no no no genuinely i think i think he was uh it it was a sense of awareness that i could have said to him i don't think you've got the skills to do this and i could but that's not my job to talk him down or talk him up yeah it's to give him the confidence to walk in and still pitch at 16 years of age to a cafe owner.

38:18Jake Humphrey: And then he realized himself, I need to go back and learn more skills. When he did that, I connected him with a friend that could help him. So it's almost creating the environment for him to be able to fail, learn. And then if that sparks that obsessiveness, for him to run with it rather than for me to do it. Yes, but your job then when it sparks the obsessiveness, I think is to act as a counterpoint. and just to say to them, look, there's going to be a cost to this. Like it may well take you somewhere amazing because this idea that we're on the hedonic treadmill, that if I'm obsessed about something and achieve it, then I'm finally going to be happy.

38:54I think that we can have the dual conversation with people that like this, the obsessive nature of making a difference in the world is available to you. And that's often the thing that has enabled people to be real change makers.

39:08Jake Humphrey: Yeah, yeah. But you also have to understand, it won't necessarily give you the fulfillment that you want it to give you and it could cost you an awful lot now make your decision rather than the sort of grind slot message of you're not good enough and if you don't do this you're a failing person I saw an awful post from Tony Robbins the other day he put it on his he put it on his Instagram and this for me is like the this is the ultimate expression of where I think we've gone wrong oh yeah here it is this is on Tony Robbins Instagram if your goal doesn't require you to become someone you aren't yet, it isn't big enough.

39:45Now, I get what he's trying to say. You know, you need to set a moonshot goal and make it real. But I think what we have to separate here is the thing we want to achieve from the person that we are. If your goal doesn't require you to become someone you aren't, I would say if your goal doesn't require you to achieve something incredible, it isn't big enough. But it can't require you to become someone that you aren't. Yeah, yeah. Because that's the most dangerous message of all is that you're not enough. Yeah. Because achieving the thing that Tony Robbins maybe thinks that you should is not going to solve the problem here.

40:18Like you're still going to feel empty at the end of it.

40:20Jake Humphrey: But again, I think that's where we've been really privileged over this seven year journey so far. We've been speaking to people that have actually got the moonshot. They've got the place that they dreamed of getting and then said, wasn't what I thought it was. It didn't make me happy. It didn't plug that hole in my soul that had driven me to get there. And I think that's something that I'm really proud of, that we can share that with people to go, that we've spoken to people that have scaled Everest and realised that happiness wasn't found at the summit. It was the journey to get there, what they'd learnt along the way, the people they'd done it.

40:55And that's what we spoke to Mark Manson about. We're going to roll forwards now to episode 171. So this is now what we're releasing. So this is a couple of years later. Yeah. And this is what we said to Mark. To be honest, Mark, it's something that we've become aware of. Like when high performance first started, you know, I had the original idea and wanted it to be all about like graft and get smacked in the face and get up and keep going. You can do it. And actually, when you have conversations, you know, like another example is Johnny Wilkinson, who is a rugby player, English rugby player. He won the Rugby World Cup.

41:29It's one of the most famous sporting moments in the history of our country. It was a drop goal in the very last minute of a final. he'd spent 20 years for that moment and the joy was 30 seconds long yeah and then he went right back to the start that was the first time I heard someone talk like that and I thought wow so this message I'm desperate to put across of keep on going regardless of what happens because you'll get that great moment at the end you realize there is no great moment at the end so really this podcast has changed really to us kind of saying to people the total opposite really it's It's like you talk about it in your books, you talk about it on your film, the hedonic treadmill.

42:06We're trying to remind people to get off this hedonic treadmill of believing there's going to be a moment. So there you go. That's an example of how the thinking of changing that time. But I guess what we're always going to have to just accept is that our podcast is called High Performance. We are delivering episodes where we are speaking to people about optimizing their life and finding an edge. and we are doing it in an era where if you put out some pretty dangerous grindslop narratives, they're going to get traction and big numbers. Therefore, we have to kind of accept, regardless of the conversations we have and what we know we believe, that we are going to be lumped in with other people, right?

42:45Jake Humphrey: Yeah, we do have to accept it, not always have to like it. And hopefully episodes like this where we're just looking in the mirror and holding it up to ourselves and questioning our own beliefs. you know one of your favorite phrases is hold your belief slightly so this is what we're trying to demonstrate that we're willing to do that and lean into it and hopefully it sort of allow people to shift their perspective if that if they hold the belief that we're here and telling you that you're nothing unless you've achieved something well that's precisely the opposite yeah and i think the other thing that we have to be better at actually is just accepting that other people are totally entitled to have an opinion of us and our show and our conversations.

43:28And let's finish with one final clip from a very recently recorded conversation with Jimmy Carr. When we sat down, we literally asked him this question, like, because the first thing that we said was, like, have you ever listened? And he's like, yeah, listen, I love it. And I think Jimmy Carr is such an eloquent, thoughtful and fascinating guy. The next natural question is, well, why do you think we get lumped in with some of the dangerous conversations? And this is what Jimmy had to say.

43:55Jake Humphrey: you can get a little bit captured by your critics rather than your fans. I think the idea of going other people's opinion of your podcast is none of your business. Yeah. Just isn't your business is doing this. Yes. And then how someone else labels it or where they put it, it, who cares? Yeah. Who cares? You know, Oh, it's optimization slop. Okay. That feels like an online term that you don't need to be aware of. Right. Because it doesn't help. Is it helping the thing? And you go, well, you're interested in this specific kind of area and that idea of going, well, how can I actually, what lessons can be taken from this?

44:34Jake Humphrey: Yeah. What's the thing that's, okay, so it's very, very specific what I do, but there are, you can generalise from that. Brilliant. Well, I'm glad we have you as a listener and that's helpful for us. Yeah, that's one. Thank you. We finally found the one, guys. We find our one listener. Yeah. So there you go. I mean, I think it's pretty rare for a podcast to kind of turn the mirror on itself and say, this is what we were, this is what we've become, and this is the journey we've been on. But I think it's a good reminder for you and I, because I think these kinds of conversations actually help us.

45:08The next time a guest sits down, we'll remember that we've kind of cogitated over what we are, who we stand for, and where we want this show to go. And it's kind of helpful, I think, for the structure of the conversations that we're going to be having.

45:19Jake Humphrey: yeah definitely i think we you know the core of what we set out to do which was to share with people the lessons from some of the planet's highest achievers that they could use in their own life has never changed i think the way that we choose to get around there has been flexible so four things we all think we're finished we never are the grind works for some people but actually is a terrible default suffering mostly teaches you to suffer more and the version of this that we believe now is actually about loving the thing without letting the thing own you. And that's why we've actually brought back one of the early ways that we used to sign off from the show because it makes perfect sense to us in the kind of the new way that we're feeling.

46:01So maybe we should sign off with the classic sign off. Maybe you should do it this time.

46:05Jake Humphrey: Well, like we do say, be humble, be curious and be empathetic. Thanks for joining us. Bye.

46:15you