End of Year Review: Our Most Impactful Conversations & Our Biggest Guest Responds!

0:28Hey everyone, early happy Christmas from High Performance. Well, look, we've come to the end of another year of high performance. So we came into the studio this morning, and Will, our producer, who's in the room, hi, Will, hello, guys. He said, so here we go then. Six years we've been doing this for, and it still stops me in my tracks when I think it's been six years. I've spent more time hosting this podcast than I had hosting Formula One. Really? Yeah, I did four years on F1. I think that's a good example of where something starts as a passion. We were both passionate about it, one way about from the very beginning.

1:01And I think that that's really important to share with people, isn't it? That it is genuinely what drives us. Yeah, well, because we have the same goal, right? On day one. Not to be salacious, not to chase the clicks, not to put out conversations that we know are going to do good numbers, but actually aren't very valuable to people. You know, we ask ourselves the same question about our kids before every record, which is? Does this leave the world a better place for our children? And I think it's worth sharing, I don't think it's betraying the confidence, that one of the biggest buzzes I got this year was when Gareth Southgate agreed to come and chat with us.

1:35And part of the reason was that he'd met us five years earlier and he said, I can see you still have the same sense of purpose from five years ago. That to me was a real compliment that he recognised it was an authenticity at the heart of what we do. Yeah, you're totally right. And we're going to spend the next few minutes actually looking back at some of the biggest episodes that we've recorded this year. We've had some lovely messages from you guys about the things that have been impactful. And Damien and I are going to share with you the thing that we've heard this year that we've taken on board ourselves.

2:05The conversation we think is most impactful this year. The guest who surprised us the most. The answer that stayed in our head the longest as well. Is that up there with one of our biggest episodes of the year on audio, Gareth? I know it's only just been recorded recently, but is it tracking? Absolutely, yeah. What else have you got? Because Will is the numbers guy. I think for our audience, Will, as the producer, I think they and I are interested in what works on audio, what people listen to on audio, what have been the biggest things they've listened to. And then YouTube, because I bet they're not the same.

2:36They're not the same. I want to start, actually, by let's just ask you both how many actually new guests we've recorded this year. New guests? Yeah. What guests that we'd not previously had on before 2025? I'll go 70. I'll go 48. 73. 73? Oh, what a guess. 73 people. 73 people Wow More than you think isn't it Yeah Although you were pretty close But I was only basing that on some of the people like that we've done on Habits we've got 52 roughly Yeah And then I've also recorded one where it happened guys so I've worked really hard You've done even more Yeah The split there is a little bit of a difference between YouTube and the RSS Spotify and Apple but let me ask you what do you think is the most popular episode that we have recorded this year on YouTube I think either Triple H or Boris Becker I'd go Becker Callum Nicholas the F1 conversation wow with one of the mechanics at Red Bull not someone who might actually stand out as the most well known person but actually I'm going to text him and tell him you're going to text him now let him know yeah but you know shows you actually how much that sport has exploded into the mainstream but then also how much we don't also need you know the superstars to come in and give us the insights he's literally telling him right now I'm a voice note guy as you know you recorded the biggest episode of 2025 on high performance on YouTube how many views were all like 700 ,000 or something way more than that in the millions yeah 5-6 million well there you go Callum Nicholas congratulations but that to me makes me really appreciate our listeners and our viewers because that shows you that they're willing to dig a little bit deeper rather than just the headline names to find somebody that's in a world that they're intrigued about um what else will uh well you're right about boris becker yeah like i mean probably all of our collective highlights of the you know amount of time he gave us that the story that he had right and being able to be the exclusive podcast that he came on to tell that experience of going in prison, I think for all of us, that was up there with one of the biggest, most impactful moments.

5:00It was for me. That's still the moment, you know, when he said, what did I go to prison for? You actually know what I did. You know what I was found guilty of. Yes. I will ask you because that's one part of the book is, and I give you a few minutes to think about it, part of the book is that people wrote so much rubbish of what I supposedly have done. I was scrambling at that point. Remember, yeah, I know. I don't know, Boris. I know, but I kind of, I think I just about got away with it because I sort of just, do you know, I remember actually thinking at that point, well, I can say what I think you might want to hear or I can just tell him the truth, which is that when I watched the news reports, I just thought you were a fraud.

5:42Like, you know, you were embezzling money or whatever. And I think the reason why that was kind of okay to say was because I was putting across the view of probably most people at that point. Because I think what we both, I think got early from that conversation with Boris and for people that don't know we you know we traveled out to Germany to do the record he was out there commentating on a big tennis tournament he's not able to come or at that time maybe still the case wasn't able to come to the UK because of visa restrictions because of his conviction and like he'd obviously written a book about his life but you know when you understand early on what someone actually wants to tell you he didn't want to talk about his upbringing or winning Wimbledon or what his future looks like he wanted to like come at us about what did I go to prison for?

6:27Like, that was his frustration, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And I sometimes think, like, one of the big lessons I've learned in the time we've been doing high performance is reading that guest sort of early on. Yeah. Like, because the big mistake that I know we both feel we made was when we interviewed Edwin van der Sar, the IACs director of football. Still bothers me, that. It does me, and he came in the room, and for those of, well, none of you will know this because we've spoken about it, but he came in the room, didn't he? And he said, hey, how are you? And he went, pfft, shit. Do you remember?

6:53and he looked really stressed. The world was on his shoulders. Ajax was struggling. He was obviously under massive pressure. And we just go, okay, well, what's your definition of high performance? And it's like, hold on. And what happened two weeks later? Had a stroke. Had a stroke. It's like that old Henry Ford quote, isn't it? If you'd have asked his customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse. Whereas actually the reality is, I think we could have gone somewhere completely different on the podcast. Yeah. But, you know, you live and learn, right? And as we talk about often, And those mistakes are the ones where you pick up the most knowledge.

7:26I know there's messages coming in from people that have listened to the show over the year, Will. What are they saying? Well, I think the main thing we want to focus on, what has been the most impactful conversation of the year? And I know that you guys are going to give us your answers. But, you know, we've had a few messages, one from Dwayne on our Insta channel saying, Keely Hodgkinson and Ryan Yates. Ryan Yates would be one of my favourite. Yeah. I mean, I love someone who comes in and just is a great... You know when someone's in a conversation, they're an amazing storyteller, but they lean into you guys so much and they so want to be in the chair.

7:59And he was the epitome of that. Colin Morris said Professor Steve Peters. And we got Joseph Worrell said Adam Peaty, James Collins and Roman Kemp. And he also listed out one of our favorite sayings, just because it's hard, it doesn't mean it's bad for us. Oh, wow. I was talking to yesterday, Kevin Picard, who works with Adam Peaty and Kevin came on the day of the record and he said that Adam still uses some of the references from our interview when he's doing his camps for parents, you know, trying to help. And I love the fact that he's back in the squad more under Sean Dyche as well. He's like a Sean Dyche guy, isn't he?

8:41You talking about Ryan Yates? Adam Peaty. Oh, I'm still on the Adam Yates squad. Sorry, sorry. Welcome to the... Just so you know. I was like, Adam Petey now playing football. I thought your face was like... I was thinking, how do we spin this one? Did you guys not know that Petey signed for Forrest? How did you miss that news? Yeah, he has. He scored the other week in the Europa League. Why are you guys don't know what's going on? That's the problem. By the way, just so you all know at home, most of 2025 has gone like that, but we normally edit out the bits where I sound like a total twerp. I think we should leave that one in for honesty and actually one thing that the viewers don't get to see is that the messages that they write in a book afterwards I think that also says quite a lot you know when they say this has been like a therapy session for me I've you know Joe Marlow at that didn't he yeah and what I've loved since then is like the way he's played at the back for Forrest Joe Marlow should we get into some of our best the things that have impacted us the most this year yeah go on So, you start.

9:47Okay, I'm going to go for most impactful conversation of the year for me was Rob O 'Neill. And it's interesting this because I actually, and I think we all feel the same, like we hate the remote records, don't we? The whole point of doing this is the time we spend with the person. But it wasn't possible for Rob to be in the UK. And I kind of thought that because he's spoken a lot about the mission that he went on to kill Osama bin Laden, that he would be kind of like, I've spoken about that loads. Is there something else that we can discuss? But when he started talking about what happened on that mission, I was just like in it at that moment.

10:23And should we play a bit of Rob O 'Neill talking to us and really like breaking down in detail what went on on the day that they were sent out? Here we go. I hand wrote notes to my, I had three daughters at the time. Like my middle daughter was seven and I didn't write her, I didn't write the seven-year-old a letter. I wrote a letter to the 27-year-old woman. I'm really sorry I missed your wedding. I know you were beautiful. And thanks for taking care of your mom and your sisters. But, you know, what we did was noble, kind of explaining, tears hitting the page to each one of my daughters and then to my family, another one to my family.

10:55And then the hard part after that was I had to put it in a manila envelope and I couldn't give it to a friend because if I die, all my friends are going to die with me. So I had to find someone on the base that was working in one of the intelligence shops. And I handed him this manila envelope maybe an hour before the mission and said, hey, when you see me tomorrow, I want this back. If you don't see me tomorrow, there are instructions inside the envelope. Do what it says. And he goes, well, how will I know? And I had all I could say was, trust me, you'll know. When you said to your daughter, I'll be back soon, did you believe that?

11:30No, no, I thought that was it. And that's the hardest part right there. Getting shot at is really easy. Getting blown up, I'm assuming is really easy. But looking your kids in the eyes and you're both aware that this could be it. This might be the last time we ever see each other. And there's a huge difference between kissing your kid goodnight and kissing your kid goodbye. And so, I mean, two of my daughters, I've kissed them goodbye 11 different times. I can think back to right before we went up the last set of stairs, it was me and one other guy. He was called the point man, which means he's in front of me and I was referred to as the two man.

12:03And it wasn't planned that way. It's just, that's how tactics work. As we were going up the last set of stairs with him in front of me, he was being brave I was just thinking we're gonna blow up for sure because bin Laden's right behind this curtain uh he's definitely a suicide bomber and when we went through the curtain at the top of the stairs he moved it and he the guy in front of me jumped on kind of tackled people he thought were suicide bombers which is incredible because he jumped on a grenade that didn't go off he gave his life for the guy behind him he didn't know it was me he knew it was one of his guys and because he went sort of left I had to go right based on our tactics and because I did that But standing in front of me three feet away was Osama bin Laden.

12:41Based on his stature, he wasn't surrendering. So he's got to have a suicide vest on. And the way you handle a suicide bomber is by shooting him in the face. And seeing a suicide bomber in person is very, very loud, very, very fast, and very permanent. So if you deal with it, it doesn't take him long to clack off a vest. So if you see a suicide bomber, better shoot him in the face. I hope no one ever finds himself in that situation. But if you do, that's how to act. what I loved about that conversation was that he had this idea that he wasn't going to come home didn't he and that when he was on the helicopter flying in in his head he decided it was the final mission and all of the other Navy SEALs he was with had already come to that conclusion yet one of them was having a nap and I just think like that's almost a missed moment of what high performance can actually look like and I know there'll be people listening to this going it's high performance being in the military and killing people for a living but in this context I'm talking about high performance is the ability to be so at peace with yourself and your life and your decisions and what's about to happen that when you think you're on a mission that you're going to die on you're still able to have a nap like that for me was like wow okay those guys had worked so hard on their mentality that they'd managed to get to that place what was your most impactful chat of the year?

13:57When I was thinking about this there was a few that like the Roman Kemp conversation we had where he told us about that a man take his own life every 90 minutes in the UK. There was other examples like Noel Fitzpatrick. Do you remember when he was talking about holding a pet's life in his hands at that moment and the responsibility he felt? Or I still love your face when Daniel Dubois answered his phone halfway through the conversation. Oh my goodness. I know that people can't see what's happening, but can we just play the clip, please, for people to hear? So what are the requirements it takes to be a member of Team Dubois now?

14:32what are the qualities that you look for let me take this call

14:41can we can we talk about the flip phone by the way what's going on here yeah I'm just I'm just in it now alright it's an old school phone that's an old school phone why do you have an old school phone because it's just cut out the bullshit is that right all the bullshit innit Cut out all the bullshit So no X No Instagram No, no, no No Facebook No need for that It's all distractions And is that your phone in camp Or is that your phone all the time? That's a camp phone There he is That was Daniel Dubois Picking the most random Ancient phone out of his pocket And then I said to him That's a bit of a brick of a phone He's like Yeah, yeah, no distractions No bullshit Do you remember?

15:24Yeah But for me The one that sort of stands out Was the conversation with Alistair Brownlee Because it was it was a fresh take on a theme that we've heard a few times where Johnny Wilkinson told us that the view from the top of the mountain is not worth the climb if you haven't enjoyed it. And it resonated with me when Alistair said about this idea of, he said, I've stood on the top step of the Olympic podium twice and I can reassure you it is not worth the journey to get there. If you're not enjoying the journey, don't wait to think a gold medal is going to solve all your problems. Yeah, here he is.

15:59there isn't a clock on something that achievement is if it takes 24 hours in a day to do it you know that's the the work and effort you have to put in but most importantly finding um really enjoying what i do i think i think that's absolutely crucial uh that that real deep sense of enjoyment um but finding satisfaction in the process of doing it i worked out very early in a sporting career that winning the race and standing on the podium was nowhere near the um you didn't get the the the joy and happiness and satisfaction from that that all the training deserves you know you have to find um that everyday satisfaction i love that okay let's um let's move on to a tip we've heard this year from a high performance guest that we've taken into our own lives you you go on you that you know that i came out of the interview with uh sarah pascoe and i said to you at the time that i said that is one of my favorite chats i've ever had and i thought about it afterwards and some of it is because she'd obviously prepared but she was really engaged in the moment so she thought about what she was coming to share but equally then listened to our questions and adapted and i loved the bit when she spoke about the fear of how she tormented herself behind stage of thinking that these people won't like me, that men won't think women are funny, they're determined not to laugh at me.

17:25And then she realised, actually, what good is this doing? So she decided to adopt that approach of unconditional positive regard, which is where it's not that you think everybody is great, but you choose to see the better angels. You choose to believe that most people are doing the best that they can. And once she was able to do that, she was able to pivot and start to enjoy the experience and found that the audience enjoyed hers as well. So just trying to remember the Sarah Pascal thing of just saying, this is just somebody doing the best they can at this moment. I found it far more helpful and stopped my own stress levels spiking.

17:59Yeah, that's good. Should we have a listen to that clip? Yeah, go on. I used to have this horrible thing where I used to imagine with tour shows that half of your audience had been dragged there by someone, a really negative thought where I'd go, men, dragged by wives, they don't think women are funny. that's so unuseful to my brain to think I'm trying to convince someone I'm good at my job. And as I've done it more, I've just started to go, they're here. If they didn't want to be here, why would they be here? This is how far that journey's gone from a 14-year-old who didn't think anyone liked her, who wants to be on stage, to go, I don't care if you don't like me, you have to look at me, to come to a place of like, why don't you just trust that most people are here because they actually, they do want to see you.

18:37How delightful is that? And Alan Davis has a bit in his book, actually, it's about being a toddler and how walking out as a comic to an audience who wants to see you is like running into a room as a toddler. They're like, hey, it's you, you're here. And that's already enough. Sarah Pascoe there. And by the way, you can listen to these episodes in full. Just go down to the description wherever you're enjoying this podcast and you can click the links and enjoy them in full. What's yours? Mine was when we were joined by Stephanie Romoshevsky, who's sleepyhead on Instagram. She's like a sleep expert.

19:10And the tip that I picked up from her was this idea that we've obsessed for too long over the number of hours that we're asleep for, or we've obsessed over the time that we go to bed. And all of us make such a lot of effort, or think we should make a lot of effort to not watch screens, and not be on our phones, and have a hot drink, and start to wind down, and chill out with the kids, and take a bath or a shower. She said, we're all thinking about it back to front. Like, what is the most important part of your sleep is not what you do before you go to bed, it's when you wake up. and she spoke about like your like sleep consistency the bedtime and the waking time are the most important thing and i definitely was in this world where i thought well if i've got a late night i'll have a late start tomorrow or um it doesn't matter if on the weekends i lie in bed till 9 a.m because there's no pressure and i can chill out and she's saying like if you lie in bed till 9 a.m you're going to wake up like you're jet lagged through three time zones because i'm normally a 6 a.m kind of guy um or i would be thinking well as long as i get eight hours i'm fine, how can I possibly be tired if I've got eight hours of sleep?

20:11And so her point was that our circadian rhythm is the most important thing. And you start your circadian rhythm by getting out of bed at the same time every day. So that by the time you go to bed in the evening, your body, and again, it should be a same or similar time, your body started to get into this routine where it knows you're about to go to sleep. Whereas if you wake up an hour before or an hour later every day, you're waking up when you're in a deep sleep or you're waking up too late and your body's just out of sync the whole time. So she can explain it way better than me, but I thought her advice about focusing on your wake time, not your sleep time or your number of hours in bed was really good.

20:46It's worrying how we talk about, you know, basically from an adult onwards till the day you die, you're supposed to get eight hours of sleep or it's completely impossible. When you wake up around about the same time, what you don't have the ability to do is sleep in. And when you sleep in, you're confusing your brain. It doesn't understand then that you still want to feel sleepy at 10 o 'clock or 11 o 'clock and you still want to be able to get through the night. I guess a good way of explaining it is a bit like a phone battery. Most of us kind of understand now that with a phone battery, you probably need to let it go down quite a bit and then you charge it up again.

21:21And that's a nice consistent pattern. It's nice and predictable. You understand when it's going to work and when maybe it won't work. But then if you're quite inconsistent about that process, not only do you not know when it's going to work, but you now have a problem with the actual battery not being very strong and the battery weakens. That's basically what your sleep drive is doing. So if you think about it, when you get up about the same time every day, you can't alleviate any sleep debt that you might have incurred. So what your brain will do if you really do have anything that it needs to alleviate is it will make you either go to bed a bit earlier if you need to.

22:00So you might feel a bit sleepier a bit earlier. But actually, something amazing happens in your brain, which is that you don't always have to get like for like. So if you lose four hours, you don't have to gain four hours. I think that expectation really sends us down the wrong track. Sometimes what your brain does is it just figures out what stages of sleep that you were missing that it really needs you at that point in time to have the most. And it will increase those in your next night's sleep so the the crazy thing is is that sometimes having a poor night can actually improve the efficiency and the quality of your sleep but only if you're being fairly consistent you've got a fairly consistent baseline in your behavior the brilliant stephanie romoshevsky who joined us on the podcast in 2025 and steph's got a book well steph's got a book coming out in 2026 as well uh she sent me uh an early manuscript of it and everything that you've just heard there, she explains it in such an accessible way that that's definitely going to be a must read.

23:07You're listening to Jake and Damien and Will, our producer. Hi Will. Hello. Who we've allowed on the podcast for one time and one time only to celebrate the end of the year. He's looking crestfallen. He is genuinely the power behind that. He's been trying to steal your job for six years. So just be careful. He's better looking, he's more... Just better, guys. He's just better in general. Stop, but don't stop. It's our review of 2025. We're looking back at some of the things that have meant the most to you. Before we go on with some more clips, can you break down maybe like the top five biggest episodes that people have listened to and the top five biggest ones that they've watched, Will?

23:44The top five biggest ones that they've listened to. Actually, throw some guesses at me and I will see whether you're right. I will give you the top five episodes that people have listened to. So this is on audio? On audio, Spotify and Apple. Carlos Sainz. Correct. Triple H? No. I would say Gareth Southgate, but we only recorded it a couple of months ago. So I think at the moment, it wouldn't be in the top five. It wouldn't be in the top five, but it will be. Okay. These are things that are currently in the top five with the most listened. So think a bit further back. Steve Peters. Correct. I'm going to say Alistair Brownlee, who Damien's already mentioned.

24:21Yeah, Alistair Brownlee's there. Is he? Yeah. In the top five? In the top seven. He's seventh. Okay, good. One of them, okay, we'll do one more. This one might surprise you. It's somebody that wasn't a known person, but came in with an amazing statistical analysis. I got it. Go on. Do you know? Yeah. Go on then. Ian Graham. Yeah, Ian Graham. So people are going, because they don't know who he is, who's Ian Graham? He is the stats guy that basically helped to transform Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp, right? Correct, yeah. And those stories that he told us were just... There was a bit where he spoke about Mo Salah and why they signed Mo Salah, wasn't there?

25:03And other people were saying, no, no, no, he's not the guy. And then he went, no, this is why we signed him. Virgil van Dijk was the same. They looked at the stats and then said, no one on the planet is doing what Virgil van Dijk is doing. Well, it was interesting, wasn't it? I was thinking about that recently when I saw Carragher saying that before he joined Liverpool, that he was regarded as the Chelsea reject. I was like, but we met the guy that said, no, no, no, look beyond that. He wasn't a reject. Look good what he did. That was exactly the reason why they signed him. That was exactly the reason that Jurgen Klopp saw the failure at Chelsea as a positive to why he would work at Liverpool.

25:38Right, time to go to some more clips then. Let's go to the most honest guest of the year. Who do we feel came on and just opened up? I've got two that I'd like to mention. Go on, you start. Okay, I'm going to play a clip from the second person, but I'm going to talk about the first person first. So the person I believe came in and was most honest, and by the way, for any other guest that did join us and thought, I was really honest, we know, you're all coming in and being honest, but I thought Callum Wilson was massively brave. When he came on, and we thought it would be a conversation about football, and he sort of sat down and he puffed, and he went, look, I've been speaking to my partner about whether I should even talk about this, but I'm going to.

26:18And then he shared the trauma that he had as a young person. It's for him to tell the story, not me. So if you want to hear the Callum Wilson episode in full and why it was so honest and impactful, again, you can find it in the description to this podcast. But he came in and told us that he had some really dark times as a kid and that as a footballer, the more he smiled, the harder life was for him at that time. So I know people that have played with him and I said to them before the episode was out, I said, tell me about Callum Wilson. and they were like funniest guy, good time guy, happiest guy, always up for a laugh, always full of energy.

26:52And you know that he really has spent a 20-year professional football career not telling anyone the truth about his life and what happened to him. And therefore, A, to finally tell the truth, B, to finally tell it in a public platform, but C, for that truth to be something so personal to him. I applaud someone like Cullen Wilson for doing that, and I think it's a good example of the direction of football. and hopefully the world is going where guys do open up. So Callum Wilson is up there. But here's a clip from Heston Blumenthal. And the clip that I'd like you to play, actually, Will, is when he talks about the moment that he's having a serious mental health breakdown and he has to be sectioned.

27:33Here he is. I would become a danger to myself and to the people that care for me around me. so she had arranged it so that I had a couple of policemen turn up to the house five firemen a doctor and assistant they basically injected me and took me to I woke up in a I woke up in a psychiatric hospital I didn't know where I was what it took me after it was my wife couldn't see me for the first I think two days and then I started to know And then I was seeing this psychiatrist, and she said, you're bipolar. And I never thought, I knew I had ADHD. I thought I might have had PTSD. I was going for the full house of neurodiverse things, although bipolar is not neurodiverse.

28:30I had no idea. I was surprised more than anything else. And that two months I spent in hospital, I was being monitored. daily, not just by the doctor, but the nurses there and stuff. So you can say thanks to my wife, I had this really clear diagnosis that when I was doing the research about symptoms and signs of bipolar, I ticked nearly all the boxes. There's bipolar one, bipolar two, and then another bipolar three. You can sort of flip between them. Again, it's funny, isn't it? You forget who you've spoken to, the things they've said, the impact it had on you. And I think that's one of the biggest disappointments, actually, of the human brain, is that I still know 31415, which was my home phone number when I was 11.

29:19I don't need that fucking information anymore, but it's there. I would much rather remember what Airsten Blumenthal had said to me. Yeah, I forget that stuff. You can probably explain why, but it's weird, isn't it? Like, why am I remembering things that I don't need to remember, and I can't help it? Yeah, it goes in your long-term memory, whereas certain episodes go into a memory bank. Because we only hear it once? Often it's only hearing it once. Often it's thinking about the applicability of it. That's part of the challenge that we have, isn't it? Because we're often running at such a fast pace.

29:50The ability to stop and do things like what we're doing now and reflect is a really valuable part of our learning. If only we listened to our own podcast. We'd remember a lot more. Go on then, what's your most honest moment of the year for my guest? Well, for me, I was tempted to say Boris Becker when he wanted to talk about prison in such a candid way. But then I reflected on growing up in a boxing gym to have Tom Aspinall come on as the UFC heavyweight champion and not talk about the grappling and the fighting and the challenges of facing some of his opponents, but to talk about facing his own inner opponent of fear was really powerful for us.

30:35The fact that he came and said, you won't hear any alpha male like him talk about fear in his world. He never heard it as a child when he was watching fighters that came before him. But then being willing to say, but this is a real opponent that I need to face and I had to make peace with it. And once that cage door closes, it's just me, my opponent and fear that exists between us. That to me was just really powerful. Should we have a listen? Yeah. Well, I'm actually one of the rare UFC fighters that I'm aware of that will sit here and look you in the eyes and talk about fear because a lot of UFC fighters like to pretend they're not scared.

31:14Now, I basically spent my life in gyms and backstage at events and in these changing rooms and listen, I've never seen, I'm yet to see a person who isn't scared but it's very rare that like you'll get a UFC fighter who will talk about fear. I'm willing to step in the cage with, we're talking about John Jones here who is the most dangerous guy to ever fight in MMA so I'm talking about potentially the most dangerous man unarmed on earth who I'm potentially going to fight with now if I'm sat backstage getting my hands wrapped knowing that he's over the opposite side of the arena getting his hands wrapped we're both going to walk into the arena in front of 35 ,000 people with millions watching around the world and one of us is going to get separated from our consciousness, quite literally, and you're not scared of that, then, like I said, you're either a complete idiot or you're just lying.

32:13So fear is extremely present in what I do. Amazing. And Tom Aspinall, by the way, if you listen to this, Tom, he's had a shit year. That injury, you know that injury that he had when he got poked in the eye? They've now looked at that and like, he can't fight at the moment. And they're not even sure when he'll be able to again because he's really injured him. but what was interesting was like commentators sort of whether it's on social media or on the tv sort of criticizing him for not fighting blind you know as if as if that was an acceptable comment to make about somebody that has already conquered the ultimate favor of stepping into the octagon but then the idea that he would trade his own health and well-being to fight blind was ridiculous right final question then for 2025 the conversation that rung around in your head the longest the thing that stayed in your head after we after we ended the chat well i based my answer on this on the episode that i passed on to people how like which is the one that i've said to people listen to this i've sent them links to it i've uh given them the information that i gleaned from it was the chat that we had with Professor Jonathan Haidt.

33:24He's the author of the brilliant book, The Anxious Generation. And it's topical at the moment, given Australia have just banned social media for under-16s. Because there was two bits that he shared with us that felt like I'd been punched in the guts. Let's listen to the first one. Snapchat, we now know, they get 10 ,000 reports of sextortion, not a year, a month. 10 ,000 kids, mostly boys and mid-teens, are falling for this. They're sextorted. The FBI looked into 20 ,000 of these reports, and they found 22 confirmed cases of suicide. So we don't know the total number of suicides, but it's surely in the hundreds.

34:04And so sextortion is probably one of the worst things that can happen to your kid online, and it is closely linked to suicide. And so I just ask, what would you think about a consumer product that said, I'm going to put your kid in touch with strangers around the world who are not verified. A lot of them are lying about who they are. And they're going to trade photographs. What do you think? We would never do that in the real world. But online, we're like, well, whatever. That's what the kids are doing. So I think there's no way to stop this other than keeping kids off social media. We have to have a global awareness that social media is like tobacco or alcohol or driving or other things where we say, you know what?

34:43We're going to let adults make their choices. But these things are just wildly inappropriate. for minors. Now, for that bit, for a parent of teenage children, it sort of really resonated and scared me a little bit where it took me a while to process it. But he summed it up really succinctly with this other clip. And I can summarize the whole book by saying we have overprotected our children in the real world and we've underprotected them online. so hopefully if you're listening to this and you have similar emotions to what we did when we listened to it i hope jonathan's chat made you realize you're not powerless to do something about this you can write letters to your children's teachers you can sort of stand up knowing that there's a social movement behind you that is advocating actually we need to over protect our children in the digital world and maybe under protect them a little bit in real life yeah you See, what I actually took from that wasn't let's do more to protect them online, although we should.

35:41I'm like, let's do less to protect them in the real world. Let's step back a bit, actually, and let our kids go to the park with their mates and play and have some fun. Which one is it for you? Well, before I get onto this, you know when you said it felt like you'd been punched in the guts in that conversation? Was it more or less of a punch in the guts when Daniel Dubois tapped you very softly around the stomach and you lost your balance and nearly collapsed? Which people can't listen to. let's just let's play the audio here's the audio of that moment

36:21but please no wait because you need they need to watch the clip which is on our Instagram the face that you let me set the context to this that when it came in Will had said oh I've spoken to Daniel people and he's agreed that he's going to replicate the punch that he knocks on so he's gestured down with with you and I was like I'm not letting Daniel Dubois unleash your right hand on me like that guy's not messing about so then I said to Daniel listen if you're going to do it let's get a big cushion in place like a body bag so he agreed and then he sort of did this slow motion punch I was like you need to hit me a bit harder than that mate but it was still what 5 % of what he could have done 20 and you staggered I loved it when you staggered backwards hold on guys I've just had a voice note from Callum Nicholas oh play it our most popular guest of 2025 as we've just revealed this is what he said mate this is so good to hear I love that bro I hope you're well man thanks for reaching out and letting me know that's really really nice so thank you have a great Christmas all of you have a good time over the winter see you on the other side so that ladies and gentlemen is someone reversing their car while leaving a voice note and halfway through it jumps onto Bluetooth.

37:39But all the same, Callum, thank you so much, mate. I'm delighted that you have delivered the most popular episode of High Performance in 2025. And that's what I love actually also about this show. Like when you book a guest and it's, he's obviously very popular, but it's not Boris Becker. It isn't a global megastar. It isn't a Hollywood actor. It isn't one of the greatest Olympians or sports people the world's ever seen. It's someone who was almost like a grafter behind the scenes. And then he delivers the best ever episode we've recorded. That's good. So who's yours? So what's the episode that resonated longest?

38:16The episode that resonated the longest with me was Triple H. And it resonated with me because I love the fact that he has fully lent into how to lead people. Because he now leads the entire WWE. And he's gone from being a wrestler and understanding that wrestling is about storytelling, it's about taking people on a journey, it's about having impact, it's about staying true to yourself. And he's taken that into business. And there's a few clips, a few quotes that I love. Leadership isn't about power or position, it's about intention. A leader should refuse to waste a single day. Success is not about talent or fame, it's about teamwork, all of these.

38:55So what I would love, Will, do you reckon for like a minute you could just cut together some really nice little quotes from Triple H that people can listen to or is that too much work at this time of the year? For you because it's Christmas I will do that Oh amazing Go on then here we go 60 seconds or whatever Will decides to create probably 12 seconds in the end knowing Will here we are some of the greatest lines from Triple H that he delivered in 2025 Adding to the workload at Christmas time Happy Christmas Will's kid Your wife by the way asked me can you please keep Will busy and out of the house at this time of the year Here he is Triple H discipline is doing something that you don't want to do everything in your body is telling you don't do this uh like it's hard stop go take a nap go sleep do whatever like get don't get out of bed this morning it's warm and cuddly in here and it's fucking cold outside stay in bed it's getting up anyway and going and doing it like you love it not going through the motions doing it like it is the greatest thing you've ever done in your life.

39:55That's high performance. But what's really high performance, and people used to ask me about work-life balance all the time, and I would say it's bullshit. There is no such thing as work-life balance. When you are working, you will think, I should be spending time with my kids. When you are home with your kids, you are thinking, I shouldn't be sitting on this couch watching a movie with my kid. I have so much work to do, and I got to get this done. And right, like work-life balance is just managing how you emotionally handle the push and the pull. I'm not just a guy that runs the creative for WWE.

40:28It's all wonderful, but I'm a lot of other things that are in a lot of ways, way more important than any of that other stuff. That's just a job. During that period of time, while I was out and I was sick, like a lot of the stuff that I created was collapsing and falling apart and going away and all these things and teams that I had and all that stuff, right? And that could have cascaded me even worse and made me depressed. It fundamentally changed who I am. As my kids were growing through all this and like a daddy-daughter dance or something like that, that I'm like, I couldn't tell you what would have happened on that day, work-wise or anything else-wise, but I know there was a conscious decision of like, that's really important.

41:14Something happens in the show and it's emotional and I see some talent succeed in a way that they only dreamed of and they come back and they're emotional. I'm fucking emotional. I'm crying with him and so proud of him and all that stuff. It's not embarrassing to me. What's embarrassing to me is if they screw up and I'm like, you stupid motherfucker. I'm better than that. I should be at least. I should control that. That's the stuff that's embarrassing to me. The other stuff, it's wonderful that you can and it makes people motivated. it makes people want to work for you with you to achieve things it passion is infectious well there we go not just the end of our review show but the end of the year I know it comes fast doesn't it yeah let me ask you a few questions some predictions for next year for you both go on then let's let me say what is your dream guest for next year good question I mean I actually know what you said last year I bet I said Lewis Hamilton last year.

42:15And the year before. Did I? Lewis, just come on the bloody podcast, mate. Put more of his misery. I'd also add Max Verstappen to that list. Yeah, 100%. I'd love that. And Landon Norris again. But I'm just obsessed with F1, obviously. I'd also like Simon Sinek to come back. I'd like James Clear to come back. I'd like Mark Manson to come back. And I'd like them all in person. Yeah, that'd be good. I'm going to go for... I'd like Roy Morris-Kean. Who? Roy Keane. Oh yeah, Roy Morris. What did you have this beautiful name in? Yeah. How much you love him? Well, he did write him a letter to try and get on.

42:50Please tell us the story of that. So when we first started, I reached out to a few people that we had in common and they said to me, here's his address, get in touch with him. So I figured that the old school way of handwriting a letter, posting it to him, would be the most effective way of getting an answer one way or the other. and I think he's got like a shredder for a letterbox. Because he never responded. I sent two and then I'll tell you if... Two? I sent two letters in the end. We do! But I'll tell you, I was on the train. I was on the train earlier this year and he was on it. He was just about to get off and I walked past him and I thought, I'm not going to bother him on the train.

43:32It was one of them where I didn't want to give him the chance to tell me to fuck off. So instead you wrote him nine more letters.

43:41the letter writing idea works I also like writing letters to guests after we've had them on as well just to talk about their reflection like my reflections on what they shared with us Steve Balthwick earlier this year we traded a few letters afterwards he quite liked the old school way as well yeah it's great and I know you know six years we've done this and you've only got I think three injunctions out against you

44:07yeah just the three but I do feel there's something about that old school way of just letting people know it shows some effort doesn't it sending an email or a voice message like you know I love a voice note I think it can be a bit lazy yeah well let's finish then with what would you like to promise the listeners for next year one thing you'd like to say to them I wouldn't be boring and say we'll continue to strive to live up to the sense of purpose of giving people the lived experiences of some of the planet's highest performers that you can use in your own life. And I am going to say the opposite and say they are going to be blown away by what's coming in 2026.

44:43There are things happening behind the scenes. There are conversations ongoing that are going to transform high performance in 2026. It's going to be bigger, more impactful, more shows. It's going to be more in your pockets every day. We're going to be in person in front of you. It's just going to be like, I honestly feel 2026 is going to be the breakout year for high performance. I think we've created the foundations. We've created the framework. we've earned the trust we've built a genuine brand that people understand what we are here for 2026 is the year that we light the fuse underneath it and go for it brilliant Amen Merry Christmas guys and you mate Happy Christmas everyone

45:37Thank you.