How To Handle Doubters & Stop Self-Sabotage | Questions You DM Us

0:02Hey everyone, welcome to High Performance. Myself and Damien Hughes are right here. Hey Damien. Hey Jake, how are you mate? Very well, thanks yourself? Yeah, good, good, really good. Today we offer you a service and the service is answering some of the questions that you've been sending us on social media. We love doing this sometimes, just putting you at the heart of high performance and the things that we've learned and picked up along the way. So let's just dive straight in with a question from Mikey who wants to know, what's the question that you two get asked the most? Do you want to kick off or shall I?

0:32Oh go on, you go. Well mine relates to my tattoos that I got when we interviewed Pete Wicks. On my right wrist, I have FTB, which is a quote from one of my heroes, Eddie Jordan. FTB stands for fuck the begrudges, which is like, don't allow the people that tell you you can't do something to have a voice in your head. Just go for it anyway. And on my left wrist, on the inside of my left wrist, I have Memento Mori, which is remember you're dying. And the reason why remember you're dying is so important to me, Damien, is because I want people to realize that no one is getting out alive. Sometimes I have this image in my head, right, that we're all in a queue and we don't know how long we're going to be in that queue for.

1:10Just imagine a queue of people in front of you at the very end of the queue, like it could be 100 miles down the road, people are being lifted up into the sky and they're going to heaven, right? And that's happening every few seconds, maybe a few times a second, right? You've got no idea where you are in that queue. You could be third in the queue right now. You could be 500 million in the queue right now. You don't know where you are. so memento mori is about just enjoying the moment right now it's living in the present it's not getting caught up in all of the nasty stuff that's around us in the modern world it's about prioritizing our well-being prioritizing our happiness because that cue is losing people every single second and at one moment it will lose you so enjoy your now like that's really evocative of you know the the pixar film soul that yeah that susie ma spoke to us about it Do you remember when she said that that had had a real impact on her business at Topic Skincare?

2:05That idea of, you know, we could be dead any moment. So what's your legacy? What's your impact? I really like that. So what's the question you get asked the most? What's Jay Comfrey like? Ah, what do you say? What do you say? What do you say? What do you say? Well, it depends. What a balance. No, I don't. I use a trick that you gave me where you always say, what do you think? and then when they go, is he always so upbeat? Is he really so engaging? And I always defend it. I always, no, I don't defend it. That's the wrong word. I always just tell them the truth. I say, you're a great bloke and I've really enjoyed your friendship.

2:44One of my favourite things, right, is when, because I've had it for years, people wanting to know what the people are like in Formula One, then football, and now you and people I work with on the show. I always like to sort of make out like I'm giving them some secret information, but I'm not. I lean in and I go, do you know what? They're exactly what you would think. And then by their response, you can tell what they think of that person. Oh yeah, I thought they were rebelling. Or they go, yeah, I've always loved them. So, yeah. That was brilliant. The top three guests off the top of your head right now is what Lucy wants to know.

3:22Go on, no prep. Top three guests. Ryan Yates. I thought he was absolutely brilliant. What a great bloke. The Nottingham Forest captain. Dame Stephanie Shirley, because I've played it to my daughter a couple of times and got her to listen to it. And finally, Robin Van Persie, because that was an interview I did where I thought, this is absolutely gold dust. Go on, what's yours? Yeah, great. So, Ben Ainslie, because it was the first record we ever did and the two of us weren't really sure if high performance was going to be anything at all or just a load of nonsense. And that was the first time that I felt, wow, okay, so maybe there is something in this when Ben said, no one ever asks me these questions.

4:03Gordon Ramsay, because I've been a long-term fan of the way that he's navigated the work that he's done on television. And then my final one, oh, there are so many to choose from when I get out of those top two. So I think I would go for Johnny Wilkinson. It's a conversation that transformed. It transformed the show for us, the first conversation with Johnny Wilkinson, which leads nicely onto Mike's question who's the guest who's had the biggest impact on you? That's a good one Go on, you go first with that one There's two One of them comes from a really practical perspective which is James Clear and his great bit of advice every action you take is a vote for the person you want to be and then Susie Ma, the founder of Tropic Skincare who spoke about infinite purpose so instead of setting yourself targets for the future that are very specific have infinite purpose just want to have as much impact as possible and it will change your life and that's certainly changed mine they're two brilliant ones i think the one i'd go for is uh shane parish when he spoke about positioning so the idea that so much in life you think that you're doing your best in the moment but actually you've not positioned yourself you've not done the prep you've not got a good night's sleep the night before you've not had a decent breakfast that's fueled you for during the day so I think sometimes you look at people saying I'm doing my best but actually they're taking shortcuts in other areas so the positioning message really resonated with me the other one I'd go for is Ben Bergeron the fitness coach I remember sat listening to him where he was like everyone can set the alarm 15 minutes earlier to do something whether it's to get up and just do a bit of exercise a bit of stretching so if we measure it in terms of whether did anything different on it.

5:48I certainly started to set my alarm just 15 minutes earlier after speaking to Ben. Great. Pauline from Toronto wants to know which guests would we get on again? I'd get so many of them on again, which is a cop out of an answer. But I think if I had to get any of them, I think I'd probably go for Tyson Fury because I think there's so much more to explore with him. When we spoke to him, he was in an interesting place. I think he subsequently declared his retirement. You know, his sort of invulnerability has been sort of shattered with the two defeats against Dusik. I think he'd be really interesting to peel back more layers with him.

6:28What about you? I want more of the experts again. I want to get Mark Manson back on. I want to get James Clear back on. I want to get Simon Sinek back on. I just love Peter Attia. I want to get back on. I just love those really bright, really learned, and really trustworthy people who are giving advice for the right reasons from the right place. And I think that so much of the world now is full of great marketeers pretending that they're experts in certain areas or podcasts existing to get people to listen but don't really care about whether the content is valuable for people or helpful for people.

7:02So I would go for any of those guests that I really, really, really trust. Have you got any questions that have come in to you? Yeah, I've had a couple of really good ones. One from a friend of mine, Ola, who asked, who has been the most surprising guest? Oh, I think for me, Gary Stevenson, the economist, because I think that before I met him, I thought, mate, you've got this all wrong. You know, he talks about the only way you can be successful now is to be born with rich parents. And I thought, what a load of nonsense, because I come from a not dissimilar background to him, not much money, you know, hardworking parents, working class.

7:39And I think I've done all right for myself. So I wanted to kind of pull him up on that. And then I've got some issues with the way that he believes we should be taxing people and stuff. But actually, when we sat down and had a conversation, I think all of his thoughts come from a place of common sense and all of the things that he says should at least be spoken about, questioned and asked at the highest elements of government. Because if not, the direction we're heading for everybody, from the working class to the upper class, is not looking good for anybody. So I thought Gary really surprised me, actually.

8:08Yeah, good. I like him. I'd go for Laura Kenny. I thought she was brilliant. I thought when she turned up, you know, she's got that reputation of being quite feisty was the image that I had of her. And then when she turned up, she was really, just really lovely, but really open and vulnerable, talking about being a mum and trying to balance that with the challenges of being an elite athlete. I actually, I'll tell you a funny story. I caught up with her shortly after it. And she was telling me about an incident where some parents had tried to sort of rope her into challenging a youth football coach to get them to explain about high performance.

8:51And she was indignant. What was brilliant was she was indignant that these parents were trying to talk about high-performing principles to eight-year-old children and were being unpleasant to a coach. And she was like, just have a look. This coach is making the kids laugh. They're enjoying it. They seem to be full of enthusiasm. He's a volunteer. Yeah, he's a volunteer. What on earth are you talking about, these principles of professionalism, when actually, for eight-year-old children, it's all about enjoyment? And I just remember thinking, her message needs to be heralded loud and clear around every playing field in the UK to get people to understand it's not about winning, or not purely about winning.

9:33It's about enjoyment as much as anything else. And there's so much of that, isn't there? I think often like we don't prioritize having fun with our young people anymore. We prioritize being successful so much. And it's like, you know what? They've got a lot of life in which to be successful. They've got years and years and years where just having fun is not a barometer of existing, right? When you're our age and you've got mortgages and you've got kids to feed and the cost of living is high and you're trying to compete against other people in the workplace and you've got ageing parents and you've got various health challenges as you get a bit older, right?

10:09Just having fun every single day is like the last thing you think about. When they're eight, that's all they should be thinking about. And yet we're pushing them down this road of work harder, work harder, be more successful. It's like, bloody hell, wait. Just wait. I'm laughing, Jake, because I'm sort of laughing in recognition that the other week I was away with the kids and they were sort of messing about doing something while they were playing. and I tried to stop them. And my son said to me, Dad, not everything needs to be a life lesson. You know what I mean? Not everything needs to happen.

10:41Totally right. Dad, leave your high performance nonsense at the door, please. Yeah. And I was quoting Sean Wayne to them. I was like, how you do anything is how you do everything. Dad, just leave it. We're just having fun. Yeah. Yeah, Damien, shut up. Any other questions? I got a really good one from Connor Kelly, who runs his own podcast called Comeback with CK. And it was, how do you get around self-sabotage? Ooh, what is, I mean, you'll be brilliant at this. What's the kind of, what does the science say about this? Well, the science is often that your brain is asking yourself three questions.

11:19What's the expectation? Do I have the ability? And what are the consequences of failure? And if your brain can't answer those questions really clearly or the weight of expectation seems too heavy or the fear of failure becomes too stark, your brain will find a way to escape from that pressured situation and it'll do it through one or three ways. It'll either try to run away, it'll try to hide or it'll become belligerent and aggressive. But all of them are signs of self-sabotage. And I think sometimes just giving ourselves a pause, just a breath to recognize that they're the three questions that we need to answer.

11:56so we need to recalibrate or change the answers that we're giving ourselves to them is a way of stopping ourselves, pressing that eject button and actually facing it in a healthier, more sustained way. It's good that. And I think often we struggle with the conversation around self-sabotage because people don't recognize it often. I was having an issue a while ago with catastrophizing. I just thought bad, disastrous things were going to happen all the time. And I spoke to someone about it and they said, look, when do you get those thoughts? And I said, well, when there's big stuff going on. And they said, okay, so this is basically, you see it as catastrophizing, but really it's self-sabotage.

12:33Like there's some sort of fear here and you need to get over that. You're kind of replacing the fact that you could be productive and you could make whatever it is you want to do happen, but instead you're thinking it's all going to be a disaster, so I'm not even going to try. So he said, look, for a start, I want you to understand, Jake, that it's super common. So I think that's a good thing to remind people. Like it's not uncommon to struggle with self-sabotage. I think it's really important to ask yourself the question, where is this coming from? I think the truth is that this actually requires quite a bit of introspection.

13:04It requires you to stop and just think, why would I be self-sabotaging? What am I worried about? What are the concerns here? And then they had a great line. They said, you know what? I want you to be courageous enough to tolerate happiness. And I thought, bloody hell, I love that. What a way to say it. Be courageous enough to tolerate happiness. like be okay with happiness and he finally said to me listen you need to write another story because if you're going to write the story that everything's a disaster and believe it he said you also have a responsibility to write yourself the other story which is that everything's going to be great and also believe that and then you've got the two stories and then you can move forward and you can see which one was true in the end but why not write both you deserve to write both so there's just a few things that were helpful for me oh I love that yeah tolerate brave enough to tolerate happiness isn't it good because so few of us are brave enough because it feels um i don't know it feels a bit scary yeah because often like i think oh you know what's going to go wrong if you're having a if you're having sort of like a really nice moment and you think oh i've got to pay for this somewhere down the line and i think then it then interferes with uh with your thinking or your happiness or then starts getting you to do that catastrophizing i can really i can really empathize with that Have you had any questions, Jake?

14:20How about a final question I got, which is, how do you deal with others day to day who don't believe in high performance? And I think this is from Charlie, Charlie Collin. And I think this is quite common, actually. I think people listen to our show and they feel good about it and they feel they can go out and they can attack the world and they can have an impact and they can put purpose at the heart of what they're doing. And then often they walk into an environment and it undoes all of that good work and all that optimism that they had. So I think that's a good question for us to tackle. how you deal with people day to day who aren't necessarily in the same high performance lane as you?

14:53I think the first thing, I mean, it's a brilliant question from Charlie. And I think the first thing I would say is stop using the term high performance because I think that can be a barrier to entry for some people. You know, we even meet it with some of our incredible guests that go, I'm not a high performer and sort of bristle against that title. So I think maybe just stop talking about that and just start referring to it as, how do we get a little bit better? How do we improve this? How do we make ourselves happier? How do we make ourselves more productive? And sort of just make the conversation more accessible for everybody rather than get people's heckles up by assuming that it's all about sort of being number one, top of the shop and all those demands.

15:37I think that's a way in to have a more productive conversation. I also think it's important because, you know, what we've just spoken about previously, which is this self-sabotage thing. I think we have to assume that most people do want to be successful. They do want to be high performance. They do want to be proud of themselves. They do want to have a positive impact. But it's also like bloody scary. Because while you're putting things in your way and you can then always say to yourself, well, I never really gave it my best shot, did I? Then you've always got an excuse. I think for someone to really do everything to try and be successful takes an incredible amount of courage.

16:12So I would say to Charlie and anyone else who is struggling with others that aren't necessarily able to do what you do, first of all, have empathy. Have empathy with these people that they're probably scared to do what you are doing or to get to a place that you are. And I think show respect to those people. And it's not showing them respect as a reflection of their character, but actually as a reflection of yours. like if you're listening to this show then you we've spoken often enough that you need to have empathy understanding um and care for other people and i think finally i guess charlie asks it because this sort of stuff makes him feel uneasy and makes other people feel uneasy so maybe the best thing we can do is forgive people that don't want to be on the same journey as us because that gives us peace and just because you or i want to find the very very best that we can be because we want to push ourselves to absolute limits to to uncover quite what those limits are it doesn't mean everyone else should um i know that can sometimes be hard when you're in the workplace with them or you're spending time with them um but you have to forgive them and accept that that is always going to be the way of the world because by the way there'll be people out there a lot more high performing than you and i who will be looking at us thinking why can't you reach my level you know definitely i think that's i think that's really good as you were saying it there the image that popped up in my head was the AGA Tracy conversation we had with Shay who told us about you should always be aiming to surround yourself with people that are doing better than you if you're pursuing high performance go and choose your circle curate the people in your life that if in the areas that you want to improve at that can help you do precisely that 100 % thanks a lot Damien thanks mate and of course thanks to you for your questions keep them coming in just reach out to us on LinkedIn, on Instagram.

17:58You can get in touch with the team and myself and Damien. And we would love to do another of these episodes very soon where we just sit and quite simply go through the kinds of things that might be on your mind at the moment. Thanks for joining us. Pass this episode on to someone that will find it helpful. Hit follow on Spotify or Apple, and we'll see you soon for more from High Performance.

18:27Thank you.