How to have a High Performance Holiday

0:00Watch it early on the High Performance app. available now Roman Kemp the broadcaster opens up a powerful conversation on success and mental health

0:13hi there you're listening to high performance thank you so much for joining us for a very special episode made possible by our friends at British Airways holidays that's right Jay British Airways holidays are on a mission to make all of us take our holidays a little bit more seriously. Now, as listeners to the podcast, we'll probably be aware, I know me and you are both firm advocates of the power of resting and recharging. It's often seen as a vital ingredient to high performance. We talk about the idea of taking pit stops and making sure that we recover really effectively. Therefore, in this special bonus episode, we're going to offer our advice to you from some of the most incredible guests who we've had on high performance so far.

0:56But before that why is it important to talk about this well actually there are some shocking statistics around the holiday behaviors of the british public we're also going to talk about the lessons we've learned from our own holidays both good and bad and we've also got a few tips at the end so stick around for that how you can probably detach yourself when traveling ensuring you give yourself the opportunity to really recharge so should we do a bit of this research then damien because we looked at this and it's shocking isn't it yeah i mean the one that stood out for me was that nearly 50 percent of employed adults in the uk don't use their entitled annual leave now if you think about that that's half of british workers who are missing out on taking a full proper break due to simply just not being able to find the time and as we were saying earlier if if we're not recharging properly you know that old saying you can't pour from an empty cup seems ever more true and if you're listening to this and you're someone that thinks, yep, I relate to that completely.

1:54The question just to ask yourself is why has that happened? And I know that many people will feel they have a real responsibility to their workplace and to their colleagues. And therefore they feel that maybe they can't go on holiday. Well, our question for you would be, are you a better colleague? Are you a better person in that business when you've had a holiday? The other thing to think about is the culture in which you're working. You know, lots of you know that aside from doing this podcast, I have a production company in West London. We've got over 300 staff And I suppose in some ways it's a battle for us to make sure that people take their holidays.

2:24But we've tried to create a culture where not taking your holidays is frowned upon. And even worse than that is taking your holidays and still being plugged into the business. So we demand that phones are off. We tell the staff, do not contact that person. And I think it's easy to blame the individual, Damien, but we have to look at the way that we operate and run our businesses as well in this country, I think. Yeah, definitely. Context is key. I remember when we interviewed Adam Grant, the organisational psychologist who spoke about the dangers of presenteeism, you know, just showing up and being there and feeling that we've always got to be connected and available and ready to respond at any moment.

3:02and the dangers that that has in terms of stress and burnout. Do you remember when we sat down with Will Ahmed, the founder of Whoop, the band that enables people to measure their recovery rates and they actually reward their employees for getting adequate rest and recuperation in sleep and things like that. So I think the more farsighted employers are recognising the need that you can't constantly be asking people to be switched on without recognising that you need to give them the chance to switch off as well. Okay, here are a couple more alarming stats for you. 42 % of people admit to feeling work-related stress when they go on holiday.

3:4146 % still find themselves working, even when officially on leave. What do you think of that, Damien? Well, I can be shocked by it, but equally, I can also admit that I'm probably, well, I am in that 42%. So I find it really difficult to switch off, as I know you do as well, don't you? Yeah, I mean, do you know what, right i'm i'm in the 46 i'm in the 46 that's still find themselves doing work when they're on holiday and i think that's where we have to just get the balance right in this conversation i think if we sit here and say a holiday where you turn off everything and fully commit it's either a i think we have to be careful how we talk about this if we're saying that the only successful holiday is a holiday where you fully shut off and don't even consider work um it's successful then i think we're setting people up for a fall because i think in some ways that's unrealistic and i think we have to remember that we're all individuals right and i'll be totally honest damien me and my wife harriet made a rule where she would see me on my phone on holiday because i would feel almost more stress for not being across things that are going on so what we came up with was a rule that the phone gets locked away in the safe when we're on holiday with our two kids until about seven o 'clock in the evening and then i get half an hour before dinner just to go in the bedroom on my own go through my messages go through because when you're a founder when you're an entrepreneur and you're running businesses like other people are great but they're not you do you know what i mean yeah yeah and i think that probably speaks to quite a lot of people that are maybe listening to this and you know one of them i guess we had joe wicks i mean he he he thinks an opposite in an opposite way to me i think because he is the master isn't he damien of shutting off yeah well he had that lovely phrase that i think captures what we're talking about here of that it was joe that said to us a flower doesn't bloom all year round and it's that understanding that we might have moments where life is intense and comes at us fast, but equally we need to have moments where we just take our foot off the gas and give ourselves moments to stop, pause and reflect.

5:36And you're right, for lots of people listening to this, the idea of taking long sabbaticals or holidays that last for weeks on end are impossible. But Joe had a great idea about how we can build in what he calls mini-retirements. Is it worth listening to him, do you reckon? Yeah, here he is. I heard this phrase once which was um don't wait till you're older to retire have mini retirements every year you know like little moments like that was that's a rare moment where I get three months because Indy's starting school soon it's not going to happen but just to do that and obviously when I'm away in the US things slow down you know less books less apps less income you know less opportunities because I'm turning down work right but for me like the sacrifice it's not worth it like I need to have those moments where I'm with my family and with Rosie I'm completely present and you know I think it's so important because otherwise you look around you obviously achieve so much in your career successfully but how much time have you been with your family and friends and like real time with them you know and what do you mean by real time like not you know not there on my phone doing emails like still working up there but not there because it's so easy to still run a business because it's all online I can still be like away and still keep things ticking over that is the thing like I can film anywhere and just upload videos to the app I can upload videos to YouTube so I'm really lucky I've got that flexibility but I really value the importance of family time and I think if I just worked worked worked into every opportunity I would sacrifice too much of the things that I really love which is like family time you know little ski trips with my mates and you know Christmas time and holidays with my family I think it's easy to get caught up in success and when you start having you think is it gonna last forever and I've got to be hot all the time I need to be popping all the time but you know you can't be like that you can't be like that all the time and not expect something to be sacrificed what i really like about that clip damien is that he's actually admitting that this stuff does come with a little bit of sacrifice doesn't it yeah definitely but i'd like that stat from the british airways holidays that they did with the yougov survey that said that 79 of most people that were asked about holidays and the benefits of it recognize that just having a break however long it is is really good for your mental health and I think Joe's a great advocate of precisely that he told us that exercise is not about measuring what you weigh on the scales it's more about measuring your mental health and how you feel and people that know you know that you are the king of yes you know you hate letting people down you say yes to everything and we've both worked together now for about four years and I've seen periods where you look overwhelmed and you feel overwhelmed and I think you've learned actually the importance I know you went backpacking with your family just recently you have learned the importance of recognizing those signs when when overwhelm is coming and it might impact your mental health and doing something about it now yeah definitely so like one of the things i often say about the knowledge that we get on the podcast from our guests is that knowledge is like having money in the bank it doesn't mean anything if you don't do anything with it if you don't invest it and actually use it and when we sat down with dr peter attia the billing author of outlive a man that talks about how we can all extend our health and our well-being.

8:42He gave us a great idea that I shamelessly stole from him. Let's listen to Peter explain more about it because, and then I'll tell you a little bit about how I found the benefits of this bit of wisdom. I would say the thing that I struggle with the most by far is working more than I should. And I think that I just have to be constantly at war with myself over this and, you know, constantly setting boundaries. And, you know, for example, like having two phones has been a very big help. This was something I just figured out a year ago, maybe less, which was, oh my God, if I just got that second phone, I could still have a phone with me if I want to be able to take pictures, if I'm out with my kids, if I'm, you know, like, unfortunately, like now, half the electronics in the house all work off the phone.

9:35You know, there's like an app for that. So I could still have that, but not have the phone. Right. So that, that became a very powerful tool. What did that do for you? Oh, it was so fantastic. It made such a difference. That was a huge, again, it might sound silly. Like why would you buy another phone to not have it be a phone? But what it did for me was allow me to go to bed without thinking about work or seeing a text message that would annoy me or upset me or seeing an email that would chirp me or anything like that like it was just not doing that purely for like it was a hundred percent decision i made for just mental health right but it's not a phone that you use to connect with the outside world you what do you use that phone for then your non-email phone like what do you nothing i use it to have to have a camera it has my calendar so if i'm out and i need to know how to get somewhere you know that's it i stole that idea shamelessly and it's been a game changer for me jake that But just the ability to be able to take photographs if the kids go off somewhere and I can give them the number and say, just give me a call if you need to get in touch with me, but without being distracted by notifications or emails and things like that, has just cleared up so much headspace for me more than anything else and just allowed me the ability to be present and connect with my family a little bit more.

10:51It's so good, man. And I think a lot of people feel maybe like I do, which is when you're on holiday, you're not doing what Joe Wicks talked about you're not watering the garden you're not growing you're not developing you're not moving forwards and I think I really want to tackle that misanoma because I remember my father-in-law saying to me a long time ago I said to him this has been a long thing for me struggling at shutting down and switching off I think it's part of the superpower of achieving loads of stuff but it has a hidden cost right and I said to him I just can't relax on a holiday I don't see the value of having a break and I remember him this is a long time ago 20 years ago he said to me listen another way of looking at recreation is recreation it's a change the way you see that break and that holiday and actually i do now like it's only a couple of days actually into each holiday where i said to harriet i'm ready to go home and crack on now like i've got so many things i want to do and obviously partly she's going stop talking like that because we've got another six days on this beautiful greek island or skiing or whatever it is we're doing but then at the same time I I can then see the value and I think I just want to say to anyone that's listening to this that is thinking how I used to think I think you might not see the value of taking that holiday that that day you might feel good have a nice meal be with your family reconnect with your kids and all that but I know a lot of people will think about it from a work achievement perspective perhaps who listen to this podcast and it's like the benefits will come months down the line the daily benefit is the connection to the family the other benefits I think when you get back and you have got the energy and you have got a load of ideas and you do come back brimming like you know it's like I warn the high performance team when I when I come back from a week away I'm like guys I've had a week's holiday watch out I've got some plans and I think it's really important and I think I think it would be a real travesty don't you if we forgot the the joy and the magic and the benefit that comes with travel yeah well let's listen to Alex Scott the brilliant broadcaster and former England lioness tell us about the benefits that she gets that are very similar to what you've just described jake what's one thing that we don't know about you that we should i don't know do you know that i love to travel like love to travel and i travel a lot alone to be honest because growing up education wise i suppose we view education in such a way but because of the speech therapy and everything I really struggled with education and my education and learning about life I get that through traveling the world learning about different cultures meeting people and it gives me so much energy and I just feel alive so what's the one trip that you've been on then that ticked all your boxes I always go to different places and I love it for that reason because I learned different things but this year I went to Peru and it was somewhere that I'd always wanted to go to um and I finally went and it was everything and more learning about the history the culture of the people and nature the hikes it yeah it was a very special trip you did it on your own yeah went on my own but I feel you know sometimes energy attracts energy or you're meant to meet certain people and then so straight away I I go on my own to these places but I end up meeting amazing people and learning about their life or where they've come from and it always happens to me and I let it happen um so yeah so I'm there alone but I'm I'm never alone there's a lovely line Jake that I remember after we'd interviewed Alex I remember reading it from a from a brilliant poet called David White who captures exactly what I I think Alex was describing.

14:37The poem is called Rest and it says, Rested, we're ready for the world but not held hostage by it. Rested, we care again for the right things and the right people in the right way. In rest, we re-establish the goals that make us more generous, more courageous, more of an invitation, someone we would want to remember and someone others would want to remember too. Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. that really captured the essence of what I felt Alex and what we've seen ourselves and what holidays can do your your dulcet mancunian tones make the poem even better mate as well I feel rested having just heard you having just heard you read it and I I really like it actually and I've forgotten what an emotional conversation it was actually with Alex but it's a good reminder for all of us that just going on holiday isn't enough is it you know to say well I've had a holiday so I'm rested or I've been on holiday so now I'd better achieve great things well we're going on holiday so we better enjoy it you know Alex talks about this this kind of mindset of exploration which we've heard from so many guests haven't we on the high performance podcast if if you go on holiday with a fixed or a closed mindset then you're getting so much less from that break this idea of exploration I mean look the whole point of holidays is exploration but to have that explorative mind where you open yourself up to new experiences new people new learnings new understandings that's growth right there yeah exactly and that's but you need to have space and time to do that and when we when we interviewed hurricane holly tucker you know the the formidable entrepreneur she spoke to us about how our learning to create space came from just doing a simple calculation about how much time we actually have let's listen to her explain it in more detail and i realized on my 40th i wanted to sort of be efficient with my days and my life so I worked out how many days I had on the planet and it was 29 ,000 days you know this was the average between men and women in the UK I then you know that sounds good until you then work out how many days you have left and I realized I had 14 ,000 days left on my 40th birthday I plan to work till I'm 90 and then I'm going to retire drink wine eccentric glasses lots of jewellery.

16:54But until that point, for me, I feel like I've now got an amount of time that's counting down. Every hour, every minute, it should count, but it also should fill my soul. And I've started to become better at sort of understanding that I have to live within my passion every day. So there were sort of two moments in my life. One was that sort of entrepreneurial drive, where you don't have choice and now you're in if you are mother lion you know you fixate and you drive and i think that's incredibly powerful and then in this sort of period since my 40s um it's really an understanding for an appreciation of every single day that we have on this planet what a great clip i think well for a start it alarms me slightly damon you and me are less than 14 000 days left um but actually it's a good reminder for everyone regardless of the days that you've got left that it's what you feel those days with that really matters and you know there was a time where um i do i didn't really go on holiday i didn't prioritize going on holiday i didn't really think about going on holiday and there's been a real mindset shift i guess it's becoming apparent but also it is this understanding that um what's the point if you're just here to work and to graft and all that um so we we went skiing at christmas time we went out to meribel for a few days we've just booked a trip to oman to stay in a hotel a beautiful hotel in oman which we're really excited about um and then we've got a friend's wedding in italy over the summer and we're looking now for a few days over the summer in italy and then maybe uh we live in norfolk so a short trip out to amsterdam again which is really nice and i think really valuable yeah yeah i city breaks for the kids are just fantastic because it just gives them an insight what i really like when you go on you know when you go on holiday to a hotel or a resort you see people hotels or in a resort.

18:46When you go to a city, you see people that live and work in the city. So Florence and Sebastian love seeing other kids going to school. Like, what's their school like? Where do you think they go? Oh, they cycle to school. Oh, look at their backpacks, look at their uniforms. And it's that sort of relating to little Italian kids and Spanish kids and Chinese kids and all these children around the world that are basically exactly like them. I think it's a nice way of making people realize that there's a lot more that brings us together than separates us you know i love that i love that idea that yeah what do we have in common rather than what divides us but i think travel does precisely that it sort of broadens the mind and actually brings us closer together as a species as a as you know as a humanity that we start to connect and that reminds me then of the final clip that i think is worth us sharing jake which was the interview we did with Shane Parrish the founder of Farnham Street the thought leader that wrote a book on making better decisions in our life and when you say that the decision not to go on holiday because we're too busy we don't have time we don't know where we're going to fit it in.

19:54Shane sort of gave us a great way of thinking about this and asking us about is that really the best decision we could make? Let's have a listen to him articulate this. Mads when you look at it like that isn't it it's something to reflect on. And a good thought experiment for people to do is sort of imagine you're 90 and you're in a coma at the hospital and you are near death and everybody is gathered around you and you can hear them, but they don't know that you can hear them and they start talking about you. And what is it that you want them to be saying? And then am I living my life in a way that is going to lead to people saying those things about me?

20:36Or am I chasing things that I don't really want? Am I giving up what's really important to me going after something I don't really need? Right up there, Damien. It was one of my favorite episodes that we've ever had on High Performance. Shane Parrish, if you haven't heard that one yet, check it out. What was that exercise you did with him that I know had a big impact on you? Yeah, well, that was when he spoke to me about my diary. and I basically said I feel overwhelmed. I just said I feel I've got too many things in my life. I've got too much going on. I don't know how to handle it. And he said, well, what are the most important things in your life?

21:10And I said, well, my children, my wife, and finding a bit of time for myself. And he said, okay, show me your diary. And I showed him my diary and he went, well, where are those important things in your diary? And he just said, you show me your diary and I'll tell you your priorities. And I think the reason why that's a really powerful way for us to wrap up this conversation is that I'm sure there are people listening to this going, you know what? I've loved all those conversations. I've realized that time's ticking. I know that exploring the world is really important. It's time to reconnect with my family.

21:39I must book a holiday at some point. It almost feels like that's not enough. Do you know what I mean, Damien? You can't stumble into high performance. You can't just think that naturally things are going to improve or change. You have to make decisions and take actual steps to resolving this sort of stuff. Yeah, and if you need a prompt to do that, I guarantee you, like Shane just said, you'll remember the holidays you took far more than you remember the holidays that you chose not to and if that and i hope that everybody listening to this finds their own way of being able to take a holiday to take the time to recharge refresh and replenish themselves to go after high performance on their own terms and we just thought it'd be really helpful actually um for damien and i to put together some tips for a high performance holiday and i know these might not apply to every person or even to every holiday but just as a rule of thumb we just think it'd be really great if when you do go on holiday you make the most of it by deleting all your work apps like slack teams gmail or whatever and if that's not possible for various reasons i find it really helps to move those things to the like four or five screens across or doing what i did and giving your phone to your partner or locking it in a safe for a few hours a day remember it's really helpful if you do it together so maybe encourage your partner or if you've got teenage kids with technology encourage them to do the same um i don't need to worry too much about this one planning the holiday well in advance because my wife used to work in tv as a production manager trust me we have an itinerary it is um or it's already gone through that machine she has for the kids where she laminates it she hands it around to every member of the family so um i kind of it kind of forces us gone well i've a great line there that yeah go on when we interviewed grace beverly and uh i've mentioned it to my son who repeats it back to me where he says be where your feet are dad so it's the idea of don't let your mind be wandering off into what you need to do or what you've left behind be where your feet are and be in the moment so nice and i think you know having that sort of itinerary helps to embed you in those adventures um remember about boundaries you know i've spoken that at whisper we make it clear to the whole team that someone shouldn't be contacted it's actually important that you do the same even if you're out of office i'm away please don't reach out um but i will message you when i get back just trying to keep away from tech man i like there's so much research been done and no one really knows why but but they do know that tech removes your energy um it lowers your creativity it stops you producing the kind of chemicals in your brain that make you feel joy so maybe on holiday isn't the time to be looking at too much tech so just remember that you're on holiday um and maybe this one is not quite the same as how my wife likes us to operate but just have a bit of downtime you know between activities you know holidays shouldn't be totally organized they shouldn't be going from one thing to another you do need sometimes just a quiet silence and i think we've lost the art of that actually david in the modern world like the art of doing nothing is actually really really important yeah yeah yeah your ability just to put foot on the ball and stop and just allow things to happen to you rather than forcing the pace and doing that is key and I think the final tip I'd offer Jake is just remember why you're going on holiday we spoke to Simon Sinek the author of the book start with why and I think if you need a prompt start with why you're going on holiday remember that it's about connecting with other people it's about being creative and coming up with new ideas for what you want to do it's about just pausing and taking a breath we'll all have a powerful why at the start of it and i think if we remember that that sets us up to make the best use of the time that we spend away and if this podcast has inspired you to take your holiday more seriously you can head to ba.com forward slash holidays because british airways holidays encourages everyone to prioritize their well-being by taking their holidays seriously and that is of course alongside competitive pricing the 24-hour helpline, carefully selected hotels, atoll protection, and a generous 23 kilogram per person baggage allowance.

25:40As well as that, securing your holiday is easy with a low deposit starting from just£60 per person, so you can relax, rejuvenate, switch off and find high performance on holiday. Well, thank you to everyone that's made the time to listen to this special episode of the podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have, just reflecting on the importance of holidays. It's been brought to you by British Airways Holidays and if this has inspired you to take your holidays a little bit more seriously I'd really encourage you to head over to ba.com forward slash holidays. Thanks for listening.