How Lando Norris Found Purpose Long Before F1

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1:52Before I was the driver, race driver for McLaren, then I would stay with the mechanics. so I'd pack up the garage and take the car apart after the races and stuff. Like that I just love. So I knew like the values of people and how much of a difference that can make. Welcome back to the Essential Habits of High Performance. A place where we explore what separates the good from the truly great. And let me begin with a question for you. Do you see your work as a job, a career or a calling? The way you answer reveals something powerful about how you approach life, how you handle setbacks, and how you sustain motivation.

2:34Today, we're going to explore that question through the lens of Formula One driver Lando Norris and the psychology of how we all relate to the work we do. In this episode, we'll explore how seeing your work as a calling, not just a career or a job, can unlock deeper meaning, build stronger bonds, and create the foundation for long-term high performance. I'm Damien Hughes and I've spent the last two decades studying high-performing cultures. I've worked alongside elite leaders from sport and business and now I'm fortunate enough to bring those lessons here so we can all learn how to live and work at our very best.

3:18Lando Norris is not just one of the brightest stars in Formula One. He's also someone who models what it means to contribute before you lead At 17, before he was even given a race seat at McLaren He was showing up after race weekends to help the crew dismantle the cars Before I was the driver, race driver for McLaren Then I would stay with the mechanics I would pack up the garage and take the car apart after the races and stuff Like that I just love Just picture that The 17 year old Lando His sleeves rolled up, his hands greasy lifting equipment unscrewing panels and helping the team dismantle a car after a long weekend not because he had to or not because anyone was watching but because he knew that those invisible hours mattered i mean i was what seven 17 at the time uh 17 18 so i knew like the values of of people and how much of a difference that can make how much if i help them how much they can help me and just the improvements you can get from doing that.

4:20This wasn't Xbox in a hotel room. This wasn't waiting for his chance. It was showing up, investing and building trust with the very mechanics who would one day hold his life in their hands when he was strapped into the cockpit racing at 200 miles per hour. And here's the key. Norris didn't know at the time that he would end up in the driver's seat. He wasn't playing politics. He wasn't chasing promotion. He was doing something much deeper. He was reframing work. That framing is exactly what the psychologist Dr Amy Vyshefneski at Yale has spent decades studying. She discovered that people typically view work in one of three ways.

5:04A job, a career, a recalling. Let me just explain the difference. For some people work is a job. It's the payslip at the end of a month. It's the way you keep the lights on or put food on the table or fund the life that you really care about outside the office. When you're in this mindset work is a means to an end. You clock in, you clock out and your identity doesn't live there and that can be really healthy. Many people who view work as a job often have stronger boundaries. They protect their evenings and their weekends and their family time better But there is a trade-off. If it is just a job, then when stress comes, when setbacks arrive for example, there isn't much inner fuel to keep you going because the work itself doesn't hold any deep meaning for you.

5:52Other people however see work as a career. Here the motivation isn't just the paycheck, it's the progress you could make. The sense of climbing a ladder where each one matters. A career orientation means you're driven by promotions, milestones and recognition. Your identity is often tied to where you are in the hierarchy of an organisation and, more importantly, where you're heading next. Now this mindset fuels ambition. It creates resilience in the face of obstacles, but it also comes with a pressure. If the climb up the ladder slows down, if the next promotion doesn't arrive, well motivation can evaporate then.

6:34A career orientation can deliver success, but it can also leave people burnt out if progress is the only source of meaning for you. And then there's a third category, the most powerful of all, a calling. This is where work is not just what you do or where you're going, it's who you are. A calling orientation makes work feel like an end in itself. It's intrinsically meaningful. You're not just turning up to get paid or promoted, you're turning up because it matters to you and often to other people. Think of the teacher who says, I was born to shape young minds. Or the nurse who says, I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

7:17Or the artist who would keep creating even if no one was watching their work. Well, this is precisely what Landon Norris was tapping into before he ever took the wheel. Packing boxes wasn't glamorous, Dismancing cars wasn't fast-tracking him onto the podium, but he saw it as part of something bigger. Trust, belonging, and culture. Now think of those garages again. From the outside, dismantling car parts and stacking boxes may look like a job. It's grunt work. But Lando treated it as something more, something he loved to do. Like, what else are you going to do? Are you going to go home and play on the Xbox in the hotel for a bit, or just go and grab dinner a couple hours earlier.

8:00There's no gain for me in doing that. And for my own career and what I knew, there was enjoyment in it. And there's the bonus of working with the team more, you know, and our relationships improving and so on. And knowing that I'm, I didn't know at the time, but I guess more likely to be in the racing seat a couple of years later, it's only going to be a good thing for me that we have that relationship and bond together. Now that's the difference between seeing work as a job and seeing it as a calling. You don't wait for meaning to show up. Instead, you create it in the way that you approach the work.

8:34Now here's the best news of all. You don't need to be a Formula One driver or even love your job to make this shift. Dr. Vyshevnevsky's research shows that calling-orientated people aren't necessarily in glamorous roles. You can be a cleaner in a hospital, a mechanic in a garage, a teacher or a CEO. What matters is the mindset. I'm not just doing this for money or advancement. I'm doing this because it matters, because it connects to something bigger. It's not the role that decides which category you're in. It's your mindset. And you can reframe the work you already do. Dr. Vyshevnevsky refers to this as job crafting.

9:16Take a hospital cleaner, for example. With a job orientation, they'll say, I mop the floors. With a career orientation, they'll say, I'm building experience to one day maybe become a supervisor. With a calling orientation, they'll say, I'm helping create a sterile, safe environment that saves patients' lives. Same role, different perspective, and a radically different sense of meaning. That's precisely what Lando Norris did. On the surface, packing up tyres and dismantling car parts looks like grunt work. But he rewrote the script. Think of a call centre worker. For some it's just answering phones, but for others it's about providing reassurance, solving problems, and being the voice that turns someone's frustration into relief.

10:05This is the essence of job crafting. Taking the tasks that you've been given and seeing them through a different lens. And the science shows that this works. People who reframe their jobs in this way report higher levels of satisfaction, better performance and even lower rates of burnout. They're not waiting for someone else to give their work purpose, they're actively making it meaningful. Job crafting is all about being proactive, it's about recognising that your mindset is just as important as your role. When you do this, you don't just transform your own experience, but you begin to change how others see you as well.

10:44You become the person who lifts the team, who brings the energy, who makes things better. That's precisely how Lando Norwich turned packing up the garage into building the foundations for trust on the track. That's how a hospital cleaner can feel like a healer and that's how you can transform whatever job you're in right now into something that feels far more meaningful. So how do we do this you might be wondering? Well, here are three simple practices that you can adopt. One, rewrite your job description. Take the most mundane task that you do. Now, imagine writing about it as if it was part of a calling.

11:26Instead of answering emails, maybe it's creating clarity and connection. Instead of cleaning rooms, maybe it's making people feel at home. Second idea, find the why behind every task. Ask yourself, who benefits if I do this well? When Lando Norris was lifting boxes, the mechanics felt respected and supported by him. So who feels the impact of your hidden work? And the third idea, invest in relationships. Meaning isn't just found in tasks, it's found in people. Lando understood that the bond he was building with mechanics wasn't transactional, it was trust. Who could you serve today in a way that builds long-term loyalty?

12:13So, job, career or calling? Lando Norris taught us that the answer isn't about what's written on your contract It's about the story that you tell yourself about the work you do When you see your work as a calling Even the smallest task can become infused with purpose Even the most overlooked role can become a foundation for greatness and that is the essence of high performance because high performance isn't only about being on the podium or winning titles it's also about how you show up in the moments when no one is watching whether that's in garages, in late nights or in conversations that others might dismiss Now I'm going to be joined by Will, our producer here on High Performance Together we're going to unpack some more lessons contained in Lando's story These include sacrifices he's made to drive in Formula One, how self-doubt has affected him during his career, and why enjoyment, and not pressure, is the secret fuel that drives his own high-performance journey.

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15:27Hey, Will. Hey, Damo. How are you? you i'm good mate how are you i'm very good lando lando i like lando but i warm to lando as a person he's one of my favorite drivers i'm going to put it out there at the top i've been lucky enough to meet him a couple of times haven't we not just on the recording but when he came to the high performance foundation dinner and gave a really lovely speech didn't it it was a lovely speech but you know it was also like i remember we were talking to him off camera or outside of that and he was you know he's honest and open about his feelings he seems quite a vulnerable person and an open person we found that in the interview and you know that it's hard to it's hard to talk about the hardships of a sport like f1 because it's you know lathered with excess it's a sport that's reserved for people who normally have a price to pay to get in and a wealth that gets them there and he's probably no exception to that i agree with you i see that But I also think there's something really interesting about him because he obviously does come from real wealth and privilege.

16:33But I remember when we were preparing for this, saying to Jake that there was almost a pattern that we'd got into that when somebody came along and spoke about, say, coming from poverty or struggle, we would often lean into it and go and explore it in detail. But when it came to somebody that might have come from privilege or wealth, we tended just to skate over it almost. And I think there was like an unspoken assumption that those people didn't have challenges to face. And I think we decided very consciously that when we spoke to Lando, we were going to lean into that and explore. What was it like when your dad's a millionaire?

17:09Again, I don't think they'll mind me saying that. I remember when one of the team from McLaren listening to this was talking to us off camera and she recounted how for anyone that's in the sort of Formula One driving seat from McLaren gets a£250 ,000 streetcar, from the company's part of the contract. And she recounted how Lando's mum had phoned up and suggested that that wasn't given to her son by the basis that no 19-year-old boy should be given a car worth that amount of money. So I think there's something really interesting here that there is privilege and wealth, but there's something about values and lessons that have been passed on to him as well.

17:50And I think that came across really, really well in his interview. really does and i think that's you know why you warm to him and sometimes maybe people would say to a detriment he's open and honest about his failings as much as his successes but actually that's a likable trait yeah definitely you know and i think like in a world like this where you see drivers with the helmets on and you don't really see much about the person or it certainly has been until the drive to survive series i think people buy into him don't they as a as a lad because he is vulnerable, he is emotionally intelligent, you know, he is somebody that's able to articulate what's going on in quite vivid terms.

18:32So I think there's something really, really likable about him that people want to see him succeed. It was an episode that I remember we went to, I said, do you know what, it's an impressive place. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like being the James Bond, like going into a James Bond villain's lair, isn't it? It's exactly like going into a James Bond villain's lair. It's like you go kind of like underground, like you're in like some kind of secret compartment of some superhero's house and you expect the costumes and the batmobile to show up and it's not dissimilar to that because there are these kind of uh elaborate cars all around you and it's a beautiful place on a beautiful setting um and we traveled there yeah uh to set up in front of the car do you remember we did it in front of a car in the middle of the auditorium and we got you know actually a privilege to get quite a few hours with Lando to talk about it.

19:25Where do you want to focus first? What's the lesson we want to pull out from the interview? I think I'd like to talk a little bit around that theme of sacrifices. Like you say, it doesn't lend itself to, we often think of it as a world of privilege and entitlement, but there is a price to be paid. And I think Lando telling us around what that bill looks like is really interesting. I guess like the social life of school is probably the initial one. and you probably don't really realize that until you're a bit more mature and you kind of hit 20 or i'll say more like 18 i would say when you think like don't really have any friends from school and um from growing up like all my friends are now from just from racing um from karting and and so on you know every now and then i maybe get a message from some of my my mates from school but it's not like we're best mates anymore it's just like we knew each other and that was all so um Yeah, I kind of like missed that side of it.

20:18I didn't know, like, I guess I missed what I don't know about life from living up, you know, and going to uni and going out every night, all those kind of things. That's the life I didn't live, but I never changed that for what I've got now. Yeah, there was a tinge of sadness to that clip, you know, when he says that he doesn't have any friends from school. All of his friends now are just in racing and from car and so on. And is that trade-off in pursuit of winning a world championship or in the pursuit of excellence, is that a healthy trade-off? I think the thing I'd encourage anyone to think about that is that there is a price.

20:59There's always a price that comes and you have to be aware of it. Do you remember when we spoke to Adam Peaty when he spoke about the breakdown he'd had in preparation for the Paris Olympics and the head of British women sat down with him and told him, here's the bill this bill will land on your desk if you're going to go to Paris this is the price that you need to pay now the question you need to ask is is it one that you're willing to to do so and I think for Lando as well I think there's a certain period in his life where maybe it is being willing to pay the danger is that you keep doing it without keep reflecting on whether you're getting value for money yeah and there's a clip coming up that I think gives another insight into his psyche but I think the one should go to next is that in pursuit of trying to get to F1 he talks about you know actually what was the pressure and self-doubt he felt when he first got there something again that not a lot of people have kind of drivers especially when they're still competing against people have been very open enough to talk about so let's listen to Landon talk about this and let's see what you think I struggled a lot in like the final few years to get into Formula 1 so Formula 3, Formula 2 having that belief of am I better than them am I the same as them, am I a little bit worse am I good enough to be in Formula 1 and that kind of stays even when I was in that first year of Formula 1 am I good enough to go around Monaco and deliver that lap in Q3 when it comes or if I'm in a position to be on the podium or on top of the podium am I there, am I going to be able to deliver it when it counts but that's okay and I can live with that quite easily on when maybe I made those little mistakes and so on.

22:42But when people add to it and you see comments, that's when you like start to feel a lot worse about yourself. And especially when I'm in my first year, it's like, I know my parents have put so much effort into helping me get to there. The team have all the expectations. The whole world are watching. And then you just think like, if this guy's wrong, you know, it's my first year in Formula 1. If this guy's wrong, you know, what am I going to do if I'm not in Formula 1? Because this is all I've lived for my whole life. I wasn't the smartest guy in school and I struggled quite a bit in school. Like, what am I going to fall on?

23:16When we've been to some of these Formula One teams, I think it becomes really apparent, doesn't it, that you're the tip of the arrow, but there's so many other people that you represent when you're driving in that cockpit. You remember James Vowles at Williams putting the name of every member of his team on the nose of the car so that everybody realises that they're part of the journey. So I think for Lando to come and talk about the pressure he feels of representing McLaren like that and to be not only competing against other drivers at the top of their game but also to be carrying the weight of expectation for those hundreds of people behind you is really, really open and honest and I think all the research tells us that people love leaders when they're willing to be vulnerable you know it creates a sense of psychological safety that when mistakes happen people tend to be more forgiving because you're willing to to own up to it rather than try to present this invulnerability so i think for him to share that with us is uh is really compelling but also really really honest and uh personal from him do you remember what Mark Webber said remember we went to his house talked to him and they said like what they used to refer to drivers what they called them yeah go on what was the title what was the name light bulbs that's right yeah it's like you screw them in and you screw them out and that's just like you know I think it's good to your point that you know we're in a different era obviously but there's so much more around it they're a bigger team they're just the person in the car driving it which is you know not to be diminished at all but the pressure like you say the pressure of delivering in those moments like you said with sports like this uh and like you know olympians and things like that where the eyes of everybody are fixed on you and you know and you have to deliver at like 200 miles an hour with 19 others next to you i mean it's it blows your mind really there's a really interesting distinction here, isn't it, between being self-critical and being self-compassionate.

25:29You know, I think we assume that the best way to get a result for Lando is to sort of be lacerated about yourself. You need to deal faster, you need to do more. But I think what he's showing is there's a different approach. You can be compassionate. You can say, I feel nervous, but I'm still going to drive as well as I can. You know, I feel responsible for the futures of all these other people I'm representing, but I'm still going to be selfish in the way that I do it. I think it's not so black and white, it's either or. And I think he really embraces that, that subtlety and nuance. There's a last clip I want to play that kind of links us all together.

26:06And it'd be interesting to hear your take on this because, you know, it's kind of relevant to what we're seeing play out right now. Like Lando is now, has a car, he's battling for a world championship, something that he's dreamt about his whole life. and uh he talks around actually how the role of enjoyment is used for motivation and i'll be interested to hear your thoughts on what he says well i think like one thing i've not really mentioned as much or i mentioned a little bit earlier was the one thing for me that motivates me more than anything is um is enjoyment and just fun like it's it's a nice little word but it's maybe like an immature word to use but it's uh fun and enjoyment like if i'm enjoying something it makes me work harder and makes me want it more and then it's that a positive spiral of if i work hard i reward myself more i enjoy it more and i work harder and it's just you know you keep going up and uh i say maybe i got to a point where i wasn't enjoying it as much really and can you remember when that when that point was um i can't exactly it's in the first season it'll be in the first season like maybe halfway towards three quarters of the way through and i just was like you know like because you're thinking of so many things you're not just thinking of like i'm driving a formula one car in america or japan or whatever it is which is which is just awesome um and you start thinking about it and just close your judgment like you said so the first few things are like maybe which i would say sparked it off is i need to enjoy it you know and um i think even like my manager and my trainer could kind of tell what was going on a little bit at this point and um there was a little bit more time spent on having some days away enjoying my life and maximizing my days at home you know with my family or my friends whatever it was going out a little bit um going out to dinners again and um that kind of just frees your mind up a little bit so i think maybe the first key point is enjoyment you know are you enjoying it yes or no and kind of understanding can you enjoy it like it's maybe not easy for people to enjoy the job that they have or whatever they're doing but i know i could enjoy formula one and the job i'm in how great is that that even under the greatest of pressures you can still remember that you've chosen to be here you've chosen to be sat in this sea and therefore if you've chosen to do it you can choose how you view it you can either see this as something to be enjoyed or something that can be enjoyed and i love the fact that he's choosing joy because what we know is that the work of barbara frederickson on this tells us that when we enjoy something like enjoyment is often seen as like an evolutionary puzzle what are the benefits of enjoyment or positive emotions but the research Barbara Fredrickson tells us is it allows us to see the world with greater perspective so it broadens our view of the world and then it allows us to build on that and come up with new ideas or to innovate and be creative so rather than just be singular and see nothing else outside your visor Lando's got that ability to recognize that there's a bigger picture at play here which probably helps him be able to deal with the pressure because he can see it in the wider context of his life so i think there's something really powerful there we often think of high performers as looking very serious and po-faced and yet his willingness to say no no even even in those moments it's still about playing it's still about enjoyment there's something very powerful do you think though that critics would use that as in a way to when it doesn't go your way and when things aren't you know going as you want them to be that oh you know you lack the killer instinct for this or you know like we can look at some sportsmen who uh who don't look like that it's the most serious thing in the world and then let's just use as an excuse to say well what are you what are you laughing about why are you so happy you know you don't see you know like often people reference how Mo Salah's always happy on the pitch and he's smiling and things like that and it's almost seen as a negative, not a positive.

30:00Yeah, I think you hear it a lot, don't you? Like Roy Keane in the football studio being angry about players saying hello to each other before a game and his view is that you're going to war so you shouldn't even acknowledge your competitor. It's a legitimate way, you know what I mean? Some people do have that singular focus of I don't want to allow those kind of emotions to cloud the way that I've got to be to get myself in that state of preparedness. I need to view this as a battle. That is one way and it's legitimate, but it's not the only way. And I think we do a disservice to the likes of Lando.

30:38But to so many other people that are watching him, to assume that this has to be a serious endeavour, that joy and moments of happiness can't be part of it. You know, I think it's actually damaging. I read a great line the other day that said, you know 1 % of kids that play sport will go on and do it professionally but 100 % of kids that play sport will go on to become adults you know what I mean and it's almost like I think sometimes we see this serious nature and think that we have to start imbuing that in and we have to criticise anyone that looks like they're enjoying it but I think there's something really lovely about bringing that childhood sense of wonder and awe and enjoyment into these moments that when the world is watching him.

31:25Yeah, who was it that we had on that said, look, take it sincerely, not seriously? Ali Abdel. It's a great line, yeah. He said that nobody wants to play a board game with somebody that can't be bothered and is just messing about, but nobody wants to play a board game with somebody that has to win at all costs and will fall out and start screaming and shouting when they don't get the wrong way. So I think that's, I mean, that's a lovely line, Will, because I think that really captures it, that it's not about enjoying it and not taking it seriously. It's about being sincere in the moment, but not taking it seriously so that you forget you've got a life outside of the sport as well.

32:01Yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, you can still put in genuine effort, passion, and be present at the same time. It doesn't negate that. No, definitely. Well, I sometimes think about the lessons when you were at school that you enjoyed the most, and I guarantee you were having fun in them. I guarantee the lessons that you enjoyed and that you learnt most in, there was an element of levity to it. It wasn't just a serious grind of working. And I think Lando's interview gives us a brilliant reminder of that. And if you've enjoyed listening to Lando's wisdom and today's episode has resonated with you, maybe consider sharing it with someone who might need a reminder that whilst their work can matter, it's not just a job, it's not just a career, but it can be a calling.

32:48This has been the Essential Habits of High Performance. I'm Damien Hughes and until next time, find the meaning, reframe the task and keep crafting your own high performance story. www.granger .com

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