Fathers Day Reflections: Raising a High Performer

0:03Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the High Performance Podcast. This is a Father's Day special. Now I know that different countries around the world celebrate Father's Day at a different time here in the UK, where Damien and myself live. It's on Sunday, just in a couple of days' time. So in advance, Damien, happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day back to you, Jake. Thanks very much. When I say Father's Day, what springs to mind for you? Some of it's a bit looking back and sort of being grateful for having had a brilliant dad in my own life. And then some of it is almost feeling the weight of responsibility of being a dad myself and trying to live up to the ideals that I have.

0:47What about you? part of me kind of feels like well from a personal perspective i feel it's a bit personally unnecessary because i don't need thanks or recognition for doing the thing that is the most rewarding thing in the world like you know people go time to celebrate being a dad i'm like every day is i celebrate the fact i've got these two amazing kids that push us to the limit i'm sure lots of parents will relate to that um but they're not you know in terms of my dad and I know, you know, sadly, your dad Brian passed away in 2020. And by the way, it's been lovely. We've been on the UK tour of High Performance and we start the show with Damien's dad talking about boxing gyms in Manchester where he works.

1:26And it's so nice, isn't it, hearing your dad's voice reverberate around these theatres around the country. Yeah, it still works. I get choked up when I hear it. It's amazing. I remember, I think of, do you remember we had Alfie Bowen as a guest and Alfie said that his dad had passed away and before he does a show where he says, come on dad help me out and uh yeah i have a similar moment when we're doing those tours and i'm nervous i think come on dad give us an hand so my other emotion is i'm grateful that i've still got my dad yeah yeah rex uh great guy still around i'm very lucky to have such a brilliant dad and um my dad is the epitome of a sort of humble understated guy full of humility care for other people um and i just think you know you can't start this without mentioning brian and rex right because yeah that's lovely we're not here without them but i think i i don't know i've said this to you before and we when we did the palladium somebody asked it as a question and i always think it's really important when you know when i meet people and go well what's jake like and the example i always throw in is you what you see is what you get like you don't talk a good game you back it up and the example I always use is linking this to father's day the fact that you always get home your family like you say your family are the most important thing and that's not just a nice words to say you back it up you get home even when you're driving back through the middle of the night you're there for school pickups drop-offs whenever you can be and I always think that's really significant that you've obviously learned that from your own example with Rex.

3:08Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think we're about to hear a couple of clips actually from the sacrifice of a parent. And I think sometimes sacrifice can be these huge, great gestures, which is what we tend to think of when it comes to sacrifice. But when I think about sacrifice for my dad, it's a much smaller, much more humble gesture. Before we both talk about maybe the sacrifices that our dad's made, should we hear from one of our former guests on High Performance? Yeah, I think one of the most powerful examples of this was when we sat down with Ian McGeehan, who spoke around his own dad and his influence that he gave him when he first started playing rugby and was associating with grown men that went out and earned a living and Ian was still a student.

3:49There was that really moving description when he spoke about how he came to appreciate his dad's small but powerful sacrifice. It sort of came from my own experience of the support I got at different stages in my life as a player and a coach. You know, a father who put five pounds in my pocket when I was still at school as an 18-year-old so that I could buy the rounds and stand at the bar after a game and still buy a round with everybody else. What I didn't know until after he died was he had to walk to work the last two days of the week. I always have that in the back of my mind, that there's a lot of people did a lot of things to actually allow me to be able to do and think what I've been able to do.

4:50And I think with players and that understanding that the best teamwork is appreciating that a lot of hard work goes in with a lot of other people. So that's the former coach of the British and Irish Lions, Sir Ian McGee, and they're talking about his dad's sacrifice. And, you know, you speak about small things. And I think at the time as a kid, and Ian was probably the same as me, maybe, is that you don't even notice the sacrifice. So I did a paper round for a long time, till I was about 15, from the age of 12, probably. You know, my dad got up every single morning, every morning, and made me a cup of tea.

5:28So while I was in our little sort of porch at home, you know how, did you do a paper round? No, no. So they come in like a big lump, but you have to sort them before you can deliver them. Because you don't want to be cycling around and then trying to remember what papers to put out your bag at which house. So you literally would go through and I'd remember it. I can still remember it now. Mirror and the Eastern Daily Press, our local paper, was the first one. The second one was just a mirror. The third one was a Sun and then Eastern Daily Press. Fourth one was Mail and the Guardian. Fifth one was Eastern Daily Press.

5:55And you put them in the order. My dad, every single day without fail, would come down, make me a cup of tea and sit with me while I'd sorted out my papers. and then if the weather was bad he'd drive me brilliant yeah what does intrigue me about that is the house that had the mail and the guardian i like them coming to the political spectrum but what but then what i really love is that that for your dad is a small but powerful sense that says you matter i'm in your corner i'm going to be here with you you know like that there's so many things that happen underneath the psychological surface of that simple gesture of being there and making you a cup of tea that just reinforce what you're doing.

6:37I think that's really powerful. And that reminds us of another clip that's worth sharing. We've heard this off a theme a few times from some of our guests that were young athletes that had to do it. And Johanna Conta, the brilliant British tennis player, told us a great example about her own dad when she was growing up in Australia. Dad was like, okay, well, if you want to, you know, become good, then we need to go train. And I was like, okay, we'll go running every, every morning, 5am, let's go running. And so before we, he'd go to work and then drop me off at school, we'd always then start running.

7:12And that was you driving that, that was nurturing it, but that was you setting that five o 'clock. Yes. Our dad was completely on board. I think, I think I'm the son my dad never had. So he was fully on board with like me being all active and loving sport. All I remember now as an adult is those are some of the best memories of my childhood um just we'd always set the goal of running to the top of that golf course for sunrise and for me just having that kind of father-daughter time like spending that time with my dad that physical exertion beautiful kind of sunrise like something to aim for up there it's honestly it's some of my my most fond childhood memories it's a great story that isn't it and it's um it's a reminder that there's so many different ways to parent you know because we can you can look at sacrifice and i think that's fantastic but we've actually had a lot of people on the podcast that at times have said like my parents made it hard my parents made it a challenge and you know i think you can tell from the longer conversation we had with johanna that you know there was times where her dad was tough on her then there was times where he gave her that psychological safety he was in our corner he was alongside her.

8:22I'd love to hear from Jos Capito, the former team principal of the Williams F1 team, because when we talk about tough love, like, that's exactly what he got. Should we hear a short story he told us about his dad? Yeah, I'd love this. I mean, this was one just to preview it where we both took a bit of an intake of breath when he told us that he sort of challenged our perception of what a dad should do. So yeah, let's hear him. When I came second, my father didn't talk to me for the week because he said you put shame on the family name. Wow. As a joke or was he being serious? No, I was serious. He didn't talk to me for a week when I came second.

8:58And I didn't have at that time the best material, most likely. So my father, he had the company. He supported other race drivers. They got new tires from him for every weekend. I did get new tires for every second weekend. But I was competing against them. So I had to then to turn the tires around on the rim for the second race that they were still good enough, but still I had to beat all them. And that was already from, I think before I had the first race, I had a piece always on my desk that said second is the first loser. And for me, it's painful not winning. What do you think about that when you hear it?

9:42I'm a bit mixed. I think my first answer is that I think it's incredibly harsh. I think the idea of giving somebody the idea that you have to, that it's outcomes focused, that you're only worth something if you've come top of the list, if you're number one, if you're achieving grade A's. I think it's great to give a child the ambition and the push, but actually to not speak to them, to be so unforgiving with that, I think is actually quite damaging. And what was interesting, if you remember, when we asked Joss whether he was replicating that with his own children, he was really quick and adamant to suggest that he's doing the complete opposite as well.

10:23So I think he's somebody that has felt the damage of that. And I think that's where we have to be careful in this podcast, isn't it? You know, we talk often about survivorship bias. Just because someone has experienced something and they've done well, doesn't mean that thing was necessarily the answer for them or even the answer for everybody else. You know, I think we can make a pretty good case that Jost has gone on to have an amazing career in motorsport, despite what his dad did at that moment, probably not because of it. There'll be little lessons and little learnings, but I don't think you'd look at that and think that's the reason why I became successful necessarily.

10:56No, definitely. I think you're absolutely right. I think this is one of the things that we're not here to judge, not here to make some sweeping generalisation about Jost or his father. but I think it's important that if it challenges you to go, well, I don't agree with that. That's great as well. So come and explore it. Don't just be lazy and saying that's bad parenting. Explore. Well, why is it bad? Why is it like, what is it that challenges my values? And what do I say? I think one of my favorite authors, Jake is a Australian psychologist. I call Steve Biddulph, who's written some brilliant books that I use when I became a dad.

11:33He wrote a book called Raising Boys. and then when I had my daughter, I've read his follow-up book, Raising Girls. And he talks about how seminal the role of a father is in the life of young children. It sort of gives them a frame of reference of what they can expect from males in their lives. So for our daughters, it might be what they can expect from potential partners when they get older. For our sons, it's about what they can expect of how you're expected to behave, show emotions and to respond to it. So I think when we hear the examples like that one, it allows us to think about, well, what sort of dad do I want to be rather than we seek to judge other people for whether we agree with their behaviour or not.

12:18Because there's another clip where you may well listen to this, not agree with the approach. This is the brilliant Angela Ruggiero, a Canadian ice hockey player who is now a really successful business leader as well. An amazing episode. And this was what she told us. And again, it comes down to some tough love from my dad. My father was really helpful, actually. Definitely one of my mentors growing up. And my brother made the team, by the way, which was my younger brother. I was like, ah, you get to go, man. My father said, look, you can quit or sulk or you can work that much harder and not just be the third or fourth best.

12:57Like you have to be the best and the best by a long shot for you to make the team next year. and that's your choice, Angela. Like, you don't have to play hockey. And I said, no, I want to. I want to, you know, I'm going to come back bigger, stronger, faster. I mean, that example was the seminal moment, I think, of my life because I learned that, you know, life isn't going to be easy and you're going to get, in this case, it was something I couldn't control. I got cut because of, you know, gender bias. But it's, again, how I chose to respond to that moment. so you know there's been a lot of research done into the fact that the second child will outperform the first because at the very beginning of their lives there's a big discrepancy in terms of their physical ability so i can see what angela's dad's thinking at that point he's like you know as you get older you are competing with absolutely everyone with men with women with life with anything that gets thrown your way so what good am i doing if if i don't teach you that you compete against people with greater skills than you, because then it forces you to look elsewhere, to find a thing that can move you level with them or even ahead of them.

14:04I think it's tough, but I think I can see the value. Yeah, definitely. I think it goes back. There's really interesting research on this, Jake, from a seminal psychologist called Albert Banjora that talks about understanding a big part of high performance is where you attribute a locus of control. If you see it as outside of you, that these are circumstances dictating it, your performance is likely to dip when things go wrong. If you see the locus of controllers within your own grasp, it's your own mentality, your attitude, your resilience, you tend to just stick at it, which is what you're describing, the experience of observing Flo and Seb.

14:42But there's a really interesting interview that if our listeners want to go back and explore, the one we did with the brilliant Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe, because he speaks about a similar experience that he had as a second child in his household, that his sister was a promising swimmer, and he went along simply just to watch his sister swim. And then when he realised that he had an aptitude for it, he talks about that his father would say to him, I'll get up and take your training, but you have to wake me up. So I will get up at five in the morning, but only when you come and get me. It won't be me driving it.

15:19And again, it's similar to Angela's dad's point of, I'm giving you the locus of control. You're in charge of this and I'll be there every step of the way, similar to your dad getting up with that cup of tea, but you're the one that has to get up. And I think that's a really powerful lesson for all of us to apply, not just with those of us as fathers, but in any aspect of life. Give people that sense of control, but let them know that I'll be there with you every step of the way. Talking of being there every step of the way and giving them that psychological safety, we were joined on the podcast by Tom Daley who as I'm sure many of you know the greatest Olympic diver this country's ever seen sadly lost his dad to a brain tumor a few years ago but he spoke about what his dad did for Tom when he was young and he was competing and he was seriously nervous going into a competition have a listen to this I remember that first competition where I was diving for the first time in a senior competition at 10 years old the senior national championships i remember we got the list of how many people were going to be in it and there was 18 divers and i said to my dad i'm so nervous like what if i do badly what if i don't dive as well as i do in training uh you know it's the first time i'm going to dive at a senior event and he just said to me tom there's 18 divers in this competition if you come last you are going to be 18th best in the whole country like how cool is that and when he said that to me i was like you're right 18th best in the country that's pretty darn good and so going into that competition i remember thinking oh don't worry because even if i come 18th i'm still 18th best in the country so that the way that he used to say things to me just took all the pressure off like i knew whether I did well or I did badly that it wasn't he would have just treated it exactly the same knowing what we know now that his dad passed away that is a moving clip because it's a great reminder to all parents listening to this that long after you're gone the value that you've applied to your children lives on yeah what a lovely way of framing it when I think of Tom's dad I think of those famous news footages of Tom in press conferences and his dad bursting in amongst all the hardened journalists and crying and telling his son how proud he was of him.

17:42So he was a man that was obviously unafraid of expressing his emotions, but he was obviously highly attuned emotionally that he can pick up his son's nerves and just come up with just a simple reframing of a problem that enables his son to feel like he can go out there and thrive without worried about the outcome of rather than having to be number one and thinking that his father's love depended on where he ended up. And that links us in turn then to the interview we did with Sam Burgess, slamming Sam Burgess, the guy that in Australia has got a reputation as being some fearsome rugby league player.

18:18And yet when we sat down with him on the podcast, he revealed the really vulnerable human side of him when he was speaking about his own dad, who he lost at a really important, impressionable age when he was just 18. His father passed away with the cruel motor neurone disease. but if he listens to what he says he remembers all these years later i think again it echoes that point you said of the power of today echoes into eternity

18:56as the disease progressed it got down to everything really my father he becomes a like just a vessel he's he's in a wheelchair i have to carry him up and down the stairs still lived in the same house i learned how to cook through six months my dad was a great cook yeah you know then he also i look back now as an adult as a father um and what he actually was doing for me in those 12 or 18 months he was preparing me for the rest of my life which it's actually really when I look back at it I go wow he was more intelligent than I thought but he was teaching me how to run a house how to cook how to clean how to manage but we did it in a fun loving caring way yeah but he was definitely preparing me for the rest of my life he knew that he had a short space of time to get me ready for the rest of my life and and that's that's essentially what I did another really moving clip from our previous conversations on high performance and i think at this point it's just worth us having a conversation because you know quite rightly we're putting you know the parents of ian and joe your host angela tom and sam on a pedestal and saying like look at the great things these people did and i don't want any parents to feel inferior listen to this and think bloody hell you know those people got the parenting totally right and end up with really successful children that's not the message here i think the message here is that everyone's just doing their best and i know that i and harry and my wife we feel on a daily basis like we're getting it wrong and we're making mistakes and we're letting our kids down and i think that it's really important that we just talk about that just for a few moments because parenting is the hardest job you can ever do the salary is not great the sacrifice is pretty monumental and it's only actually years later that you see the rewards yeah i horrified my wife a few years ago when i said to her i said i think i'm finally ready to be a dad she was like you've already got two children though what do you mean by that and the point i meant was that i felt like i was able to be less selfish to be left so to be a little bit less self-centered than i actually just enjoyed being in one place and being grounded for a while.

21:11And that sounds terrible. I know to admit that I'd been a dad for a few years before that happened. But I think the point was that it's not something that you know how to do from day one. There's no manual for it. I think you've, you know, I was 33 when I became a dad for the first time. So there was an awful lot of conditioning that I almost had to let go of to learn how to do it. And I think that's been the message we've heard from so many of our guests Do you remember when we sat down with Dylan Hartley and he'd just become a dad and we were asking him, he spoke really eloquently about his rugby career and lessons he'd learned.

21:48And then when we asked him how he would apply it as a dad, he was like, I don't know, mate, I've never done this before. And I think that's the point that we're all learning on the job. and we need to always remember and sort of i think press reset i just want to read a quick text i had from glenn hoddle former guest on the high performance podcast spurs legend former england manager he uh he sent me a message actually just last night because obviously i've stopped working on bt sport with him actually and he said just a quick note jake to say whatever you do now professionally good luck just one thing always keep your priority your family and your kids i know you do but you're now hitting the middle of your career which is a challenge glenn and i just think that's really interesting because it's a nice reminder for me that it's no good me going do you know what for the past few years i've been grafted like you said at the start of this podcast you know i always go home my family first is my motto but you can't ever stop that you know there's not a moment where you've done enough of being a parent yeah you're a parent until the moment you take your last breath and actually you continue to be a parent even after that point.

22:51I think it's a good reminder. Well, when we did the Mother's Day interview with Liz, your mum, you know, that was the point that she was making, wasn't it? That I never stopped worrying about you. Just because you're an adult now and you've got your own successful career and your own family. She made that point really beautifully that she still worries about you. You know, when we do the tour and you play that clip of your mum phoning you up concerned about, like, the firestorm that's raging around you at a particular time of your life, that's really moving for me because that's comes back to the point that you're saying you never this so this is a job to the day we die and i think at this point we want to speak to all of the children listening to this i know there'll be many people who are listening who are parents and children but if you're listening to this and you're only a child one day you may well be a parent and when you are our only message to you is nothing left unsaid It's a really important message to share because it's only when people do leave things unsaid and they realise that not saying something is forever the case.

23:57And that's exactly what happened with the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer. It's taken me much longer to work out my relationship with my dad because he was by nature more distant. It didn't feel close. I don't regret very much in life. But the last time I saw my dad, he was in hospital, dying. And I walked away. And I knew he was going to die. Just knew it. And I didn't turn around and go back and tell him what I thought. And I should have died. What would you have said to your dad?

24:45I would have said, I love you. I'd have also said, I'm proud of you. I'd have tried to close that gap

24:56that was so important to him in his life. Without that, one of the most moving 30 seconds of the entire catalog of high-performance conversations. Yeah, and being in the room with him, the emotion was palpable. You could feel it. His voice cracked. And I remember seeing him as he described it, like being just a yard away from him, you could see his eyes start to go. He started to become particularly emotional as his brain took him back to that moment in the hospital ward with his father. And it reminded me, I remember you mentioned my dad passed away a couple of years ago, but he was quite poorly with dementia for a long time.

25:47and I remember when he got diagnosed and he was starting to forget who we were and I wrote him a letter to tell him how I felt about him and it's one of the things that when he passed away I was proudest of because my mum had told me that he'd read the letter and he'd appreciated it but I almost felt it was my last chance to capture it in a way So it really resonated with me when Keir spoke about it, of the importance of doing what he said, leave nothing unsaid. Thank you for sharing that. That is beautiful. And we were joined on the podcast as well by Gary Lineker, the former England striker, who did have a chance to sit with his dad as his dad was dying and did say what he wanted to say.

26:37The many chats that we had just before he passed away, probably the last coherent conversation I had with him. I was about to say, Dad, I better go now. It's getting late. And he said, no, no, no, son. And he went, I love you. And he was like, whoa. And I went, love you too, Dad. And I got out and I got in the lift and I was gone. I was crying. And suddenly, about eight nurses and people came in the lift. And it was like, are you all right? Yeah, I'm all right. I'm sure they used to see people crying in hospitals, but, but it was moving. It meant a lot because, you know, that generation, they didn't, you know, they didn't share their feelings very much.

27:20I think things, it's changed now. You mean I'm totally different, my kids and that, but it's just how it was. That's a moving way to end this conversation. And I think, you know, when you sit here and I said at the beginning, I'm lucky enough to still have my dad. Your dad has suddenly passed away. It's like, I don't know, man, the minute you start talking about your parents, your emotions are right at the surface and then i wonder whether that's because we're all we're also parents ourselves now so i don't know it's just like nothing is more important is it than that relationship of a parent and a child i don't think no i i agree with you but i think there'll be people listening to this that maybe you know they didn't have a father in their life and there's that old saying in there that anyone can be a father but not everyone can be a dad and i think so if there's people listening to this that maybe there's somebody in their life that served as a dad like figure for them whether it was something just in courage or whether it was a coach a teacher you know whether it was a stepfather or an uncle i think the message that i'd want people to walk away from this is go and tell them the impact that they had on you because as we've heard from so many of our guests the power of what a father figure can do to change your life is significant and i think we need to pass that on because then that way the ripples from it last into eternity as so many of our guests have shared what a great way to end thank you so much damien i've loved this mate thanks i've really enjoyed listening to some of these uh these billion archive clips happy father's day to brian yeah and same to rex as well and thank you for listening come back soon for plenty more from high performance