Pete Wicks: Why I've Always Felt Angry & What Led Me to Join Strictly (E296)

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. Sometimes it's busy and it's not good. And that's when you have to go, no, I need the time out. Otherwise, everything I do from this point will not be to the best of my ability. And when you're doing things not to the best of your ability, then what's the point? Until you understand your own thoughts and feelings, it's very difficult for you to find a way through darkness. this. I'm still here and I'm still trying and I'm still willing to try and I'm still willing to try and be better.

0:35That to me is a triumph. So that's the voice of someone who I guess you'd call a reality TV star, Pete Wicks. But you know what? That doesn't even begin to explain who he is or what he is. He joins us on this episode of High Performance, the podcast that explores the stories and ideas of some of the most extraordinary people in the world because he wants you to hear and see a different side to him. I'm Jake Humphrey. And like a lot of people, I'm just simply fascinated by becoming a better version of myself. And I think one of the most powerful ways you can do that is lean into other people. Forget the headlines, forget the stories, forget even the things that they put on their own social media, because that's just what they do.

1:17That isn't who they are. And you're about to hear Pete Wicks talk, as he tells us in this conversation, in a way that he has never done before. He opens up about traumas from his childhood, how that created incredible anger issues, but also how he carries those with him to this day. There's a moment in this conversation where I asked Pete if he's proud of himself. And as quick as a flash, he just says no and looks straight at me. And it was difficult. It was disarming. But it's a reminder that just because someone is outwardly successful, it doesn't mean that they have inward happiness and contentment.

1:51I think you're going to learn so much, not just about Pete, but so much about the human psyche, about how we carry challenges from the past with us all the time. But also you'll learn a lot about optimism because Pete is someone who was at a point in his life where he's asking questions he's never asked before. I need to offer you a word of caution before we start this conversation. We touch on some difficult themes, including a period in Pete's life where his mum attempted to take her own life. But you know what? My overall emotion as Pete walked out of the room with a big smile on his face was one of optimism.

2:23This conversation is a reminder to me that what's happened in the past doesn't define who we are. And I think Pete is a role model for this. I really hope you enjoy this conversation as we welcome Pete Wicks to High Performance and discuss things with him that you've simply never heard before. I hope you enjoy it.

2:47Well, Pete, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I actually love having you on here because I think that you're the kind of guest that challenges people's perception of what high performance is. Yeah, I can't imagine people look at me and think high performance. What do you think they do think when they look at you? Wally, probably. Do you know what? Because of the reality background, I think people always assume that people from reality background come from the same sort of thing. They never really wanted to do a real job. They just kind of fell into TV and kind of get paid to just go to nightclubs and do whatever else.

3:20I think that's the perception people have, that we don't really have a brain and we don't really have a purpose and that we're just blagging life. And what's the truth? Some of that's true. But I think, yeah, my background's probably a lot different. I didn't get into reality TV until I was, what, 25? And pre that, I had quite a good, serious job. I was working in the city for years as an international sales director for a medical recruitment company. So I had like a proper job. I was doing long days and I kind of did that from nothing. I didn't do very well at school. I didn't kind of go to uni and do all that sort of stuff.

3:57I just wanted to go and earn money. So kind of working was always something that I've always done. And I just kind of fell into the TV thing. I never wanted to be famous. I never watched any reality TV. I still don't watch any of it now. I've never watched anything I've done on TV, like not one thing. I couldn't think of anything worse. and people always say to me why and i always think well you don't watch yourself at work you don't watch it back so yeah i think i'm probably very different to what people imagine so you're almost like a reluctant reality star yeah it's something i fed into and now that's what i do so now you have to make the best of what you do but yeah so it's a very weird weird thing i never saw myself doing this so let me ask you then what is high performance if i say high performance to you what do you think of it depends who's looking at if you're looking at high performance in someone else, then you imagine success.

4:45But success for everyone is completely subjective, isn't it? So high performance for me is doing the best I can at everything I do, regardless of what it is. That's the way I see it in my own life. But I imagine what people's perception of that is, is very different. Because when you look at other people and you see high performance, you see high performance as really successful people with money and CEOs and whatever else. But why can't a single mum raising three kids on her own be high performance? You are totally right. So we've done over 300 episodes right of this show. And myself and Damien Hughes, who I co-host the show with, he and I have come up with high performance's three sentences.

5:23Do the best you can where you are with what you've got. Yeah. So some days your high performance might look incredible. You can be really on it. Other days it might just be not crying. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? Getting out of bed and having a shower. Yeah. Yeah, completely. they and i think that's the problem is society tells us that high performance is being at the top of whatever you are at all points and that's not always the that's not always the case well let's talk then about the journey that you've been on from those days when maybe you thought a little bit differently to this yeah so you've got a new book and having read the book and it's fascinating so much interesting stuff in there i think it's a really powerful book when you get past the swearing well there's quite a lot of swearing but thankfully a couple of the really bad swear words there was an elasterist yeah yeah yeah yeah um but there's one word which comes up over a hundred times do you know what that word is no anger yeah is it over a hundred times wow you really went with the word count wow i'm that sad yeah christ um yeah anger that's probably been one of the overriding feeling i've probably had for most of my life but again and i kind of touched on it in the book.

6:31I don't necessarily think that's because I'm always angry. I think that was just the easiest emotion for me to be able to express. And I think sometimes, not just men, it's not a gender thing, but I think more commonly men struggle with processing their own emotions and how they're feeling. So a lot of the time it can be anxiety or whatever else, and it comes out as anger and it shows itself as anger. And I think that's been the case with me. And it's kind of been the go-to thing that to get angry about saying because it's a way of releasing whatever you're feeling same as what crying might be or whatever else it kind of releases things doesn't it releases that kind of tension in your body to to not know how you had to deal with something and anger has kind of always been the way that i've dealt with it but also a lot of things over the years have probably made me quite angry and it's kind of been a safe space anger's been a safe space which sounds like a really ridiculous thing to say but i kind of that's kind of how i viewed it and as i've got older i've kind of realize that but at the time you don't you don't kind of realize and you just think god i'm just a really angry person all the time explain before we talk about the things that made you angry and how the anger manifested itself that that that line anger was a safe space explain that i felt more comfortable being angry than i did happy which is a real weird thing to say but happiness was kind of fleeting and and i think sometimes happiness is fleeting there's not a lot of people that can kind of say that they are happy all the time but people can try and be happy all the time and I think sometimes that's fake happiness pretending to be happy all the time isn't being happy because it's not really acknowledging how you actually feel and I think for me anger was it was something that I felt more comfortable being because I understood it it's because it's what you were it's almost like what you're saying is I think anger was the real you.

8:22Like every time you were happy, that was a front. That was a bit false. Whereas the only time that you were able to truly be you was when you were like, because you had something in you. And I didn't feel uneasy being angry, but I felt uneasy being happy.

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9:36Try it out now at Wix.com. This episode is brought to you by Opera Air, the first browser with mindfulness at its core. Now, most of us spend hours every day online, but how often do we pause to take care of ourselves whilst we're doing it? And that's where Opera Air comes in. It's a lightweight, fast, secure browser built not just for productivity, but for your well-being. With Opera Air, mindfulness is built right in. You'll find free breathing exercises, guided meditations, and soundscapes with ambient sounds, lo-fi music and binaural beats all designed to help you focus relax and even spark creativity while you browse i think it would be really valuable for people if you took us back quite a few years to like young p like what did anger look like how often was it how did it manifest itself because the stories in the book like they're pretty searing in the in the seriousness of the of the way the anger was coming out of you yeah i was weirdly enough quite uh i wasn't an angry child which is good but then it kind of out of nowhere well not really out of nowhere I think I look back on it and think it was out of nowhere and actually doing the book was quite cathartic to recognize things that may have affected why I was angry you know like I said a million times in a book you know it's not a pity party and everyone has struggles throughout their life and it doesn't matter what your kind of struggles are they're no worse than anyone else's but I think certain things developed a point where I was angry at not understanding what was happening around me and it's probably why I'm a bit of a control freak in some ways now is I like to be completely in control of my emotions which is very hard no one can do that you can only really react or control your reaction to what happens rather than control what actually happens but I think I developed a point where I wanted to be in control of everything that happened.

11:34So what were the things then that had gone on to make you angry that you now realise were the triggers? I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, my mum and dad divorced and that's a fairly regular, you know, that's a fairly normal thing to happen to people. So there's no reason why that should have been a trigger for me. But I think the situation in how they kind of divorced and what happened thereafter, I didn't fully understand as a child. Because my dad, you know, pretty much from the divorce, that was it. He kind of left and I didn't see him very often and I really wanted, I really looked up to my dad, so not having him around.

12:16And it's not like he was, you know, a real kind of emotional, cuddly dad, but he was my, I just thought he was just the best. Everything I did was to try and make him proud and then not having that there, I kind of didn't know where I was and then my mum had a kind of a new man who, you know, wasn't my dad, you're not my real dad, all that sort of stuff. But my mum's mental health was bad at the time, really bad and that's something I didn't understand because I felt like my dad had left so he didn't want me, my mum wasn't really present properly which again probably made me feel like she didn't want me so I had to then do things on my own and I think I was angry about that I was angry that why am I not enough for people to want to stick around and then that kind of made everything an issue so I went out of my way to be bigger louder better than I needed to be but that wasn't really me I felt like I had to be enough for everyone all the time and when things didn't go my way it made me quite angry it's really weird because it's only been since you know I wrote the book and that I've kind of looked back on these things and I've not fully processed the full reasons why it's starting to look at saying and that's kind of you know what the book is about is a work in progress there's there's no I think you'll spend the rest of your life learning different things about you and different things will happen and different situations you know I lost my nan and that's what kind of made me think about looking back at things and reflecting on things to work out why I'm the way I am now and who I am now and what that has come from.

13:53Yeah, and I think it's so powerful for people because when your reaction to the moment, right, whether it is your mum's mental health challenges, the loss of your nan or your dad leaving, when your reaction to those things changes, right, as it does over time, it's a reminder that you've changed as a person. Yeah. So if you were still feeling the same about your dad's departure, kind of be sad in some ways because it shows a lack of growth like i had a trauma when i was a kid i've spoken often on this podcast a family suicide right and i did i obviously cried at the funeral i was upset i cry more now at 46 about that moment every time i recall it it gets me like more and it's very interesting how that happens isn't it i don't know whether you sort of you know you would have had anger at that time and now when you you know you talk about your dad leaving and the impact on you it probably gets you more now that yeah massively do you know what i mean yeah massively because i think i developed a blocking stuff out thing you know and and and i've said that and i still find it i almost find it hard to talk about i mean you just used the word trauma i would never use that word about my childhood ever why you're 12 years old your mom's got mental health challenges your dad's left you've got no one to explain to you how to process this stuff that's happening in your life of course it's a trauma see i would never because i always thought you should be able to deal with it listen people have got far worse than you you should be able to deal with that how far would that get you well it didn't get me very far at all and but that's that's kind of even now i find it difficult to say oh you know that was a trauma because i just think i i know and i see so many people i think are such good people who have had far worse lives than me and have managed to navigate their way through that better than I ever did and then it makes me think well listen you know you're not good enough you should you should have done better and it's only really now that I can kind of go all right look that probably has affected things you do realize that someone else we all talk about this someone else achieving something great doesn't mean I've achieved anything less right we're all comfy with that yeah yeah but the flip is also true just because someone has had a far greater trauma than you doesn't make your trauma any less of a trauma and it's you know what's mad is that i say that to other people and i literally say that to other people you know you know i had a friend recently called me and he's he's 40 years old and his parents are divorced and it was like his world was ending but that's a massive massive thing regardless of him being 40 it makes it no no worse or or no better than me being 12.

16:25It's still a trauma. You can't compare traumas. I think that's what people tend to do. And I think that's probably what I've done. I've always put mine as less than other people's and actually blamed myself for not being able to deal with it properly. The way that I got to that point was not the correct way of doing things. And it didn't really matter to me. I didn't really feel or understand anyone else being proud of me I wasn't proud of myself. And it's, you know, if you can't be proud of yourself and you can't be happy with your own performance in something, it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks about it.

17:03Are you proud of yourself now? No. And I can say that easy and everyone kind of, and it's really weird because people can look at things and go, yeah, but this is, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But that's part of recognising that that's something that needs to change. And every day, you know, when I was writing the book, someone told me about this kind of feelings wheel and trying to give yourself, say something positive about yourself every day and all that sort of stuff, and I struggled to do it. I just struggled to do it. And I recognise that that's the wrong way of looking at things.

17:40But, yeah, I'm not proud of myself. Let me ask you then, what's great about you? I knew you were going to ask me that I see I find things that are really hard to answer genuinely really hard to answer makes me very uncomfortable does it? yeah it's so interesting isn't it because this is really all it's about at the very end you have a podcast called Staying Relevant we both know because I'll be in the same boat both of us will be irrelevant one day there is no doubt about that I don't think I've ever actually been relevant to be fair I don't agree. And then all that's really left is your self-worth, is your opinion of yourself.

18:22Yeah. So you need to find a way to solve this. Yeah, completely, completely. And I think that's... Have you done work on it? Yeah, it's part of the last couple of years specifically as well have been about that. It's about finding the good in me that I see. It doesn't matter what other people see. and it's lovely when people say lovely things to you and whatever else but if you don't believe it it doesn't really matter you could do without it you know and and listen because of being in the public eye and like you say you get bombarded with people saying lovely things all the time and you get some some some shitty things but most of the time it's really really lovely and that is beautiful and it's really nice to hear that but it makes me feel a little bit fraudulent so what What are the things that give you that feeling of shame?

19:13My reactions to things when I was younger, not being better in situations. You know, I speak about it in the book. My mum tried to take her own life. And I still hold a lot of blame for that. I feel a lot of blame for that. And despite the fact that I kind of understand more that that wasn't necessarily her, and that was her lowest point. And my mum is my absolute hero. I absolutely adore her and the journey that she's been on from then to now is nothing short of incredible. Like she is just the strongest, most amazing person in the world. But at that low point, I wasn't enough for her to not want to do that.

19:53And maybe if I'd have been better or been enough at the time, then she wouldn't have felt the need to be low enough to even consider that. You know? Yeah. And I think that's a major turning point and thing in her life that she will never forget. And maybe that could have been prevented. Because I was there, but I wasn't enough. And if I had been, then that would have been saying that she won't have to remember for the rest of her life. And hold guilt for her, because I know she holds guilt for it and she shouldn't, because that wasn't down to her. And you've had this conversation with her? Only since my nan died, yeah.

20:33And how long ago was that? Two years, just over two years. So when you first said to your mum, I have this feeling that I'm partly responsible for your attempt to take your own life because I wasn't enough, what was her reaction to that? I think it's probably the worst thing I could have sold her because she, I think, already held a lot of guilt in herself and then I just felt awful then because I felt like I put more guilt onto her and that's not the case. That's not, it's not down to, that wasn't her. That wasn't her. And this is why kind of now mental health is spoken about quite a lot, and it should be.

21:11But sometimes I think I don't feel like it's spoken about in the right way. I think sometimes a lot of it is, you know, just talk, just talk, just talk. And that's great. And that works for so many people, but it doesn't work for everyone. And also everyone is so individual. The most beautiful thing about you, me and everyone is that you're completely and utterly unique. No one feels and thinks the way you do. so there's no one size fits all answer to mental health and there's also there's there's no cure you're gonna you're gonna have that for the rest of your life you know regardless and everyone has the ability to suffer in different ways and have trigger points that may lead you down a path that is not great everyone has that within them and it's about ensuring that you can create prevention of getting yourself to that point and i don't know what the answer to that is.

22:00I don't think there is an answer necessarily that you can just throw around to everyone. It's something you have to work on yourself within you and understanding yourself better. And I think that's, again, part of what I think men specifically don't do. But also, again, it's not a gender thing, is that until you understand your own thoughts and feelings, it's very difficult for you to find a way through darkness because you have to have a starting point does that make sense it makes absolutely perfect sense and look thank you for sharing it so eloquently the way that you talk about mental health i think is so valuable because you're totally right we still talk about mental health in a way where we dance around the subject but i'm feeling a bit down at the moment yeah you know i'm not really myself what are you actually saying and the problem is it then leaves people like your mum in a position where they do feel there's just no other alternative here and when we had a family suicide it was my grandma I'm not as close as my mum, right?

22:59But I had a not dissimilar experience where a few days before she'd walked past me and I was doing some revision, she said, I don't think I can carry on. And I remember going, you'll be fine, and carry on with my schoolwork, right? And I'm sure you've been over those sorts of moments in your head as well where you think one slightly different conversation there could have changed everything. And what reconciled things, I think, eventually for me is that my grandma took her own life despite the fact that we were all there. Your mum attempted it despite the fact that you were there and you were enough and she loved you and you were her everything and still are.

23:36Not because of, you know. Yeah. But for someone with self-worth at the level that you have it, of course, who's the person you're going to blame? Yeah. It all comes back to that same point, doesn't it, of you finding a way to think that Pete Wicks is worth loving. even from that going into you know relationships and everything else it's as soon as kind of that kind of closeness develops I'm like I'm off then it's a case of you know leaving before someone leaves you and it's that classic like you know what do they call it abandonment attachment whatever it may be and again that's a really common thing but you're basically self-sabotaging because at least and this is the the control freak part at least i'm in control of that so do you have a partner now no and listen i i never thought i wanted to get married or have kids and again over the last few years i would love to get married i would love to have kids but i'm not in a position to be able to do that yet because there is still so much weird stuff in my head that that would be so unfair for me to be able to go and do that you know it may be to the point that I may never get married, I may never have kids and that's okay but I would love to, you know, I don't know anyone why wouldn't you, what's the point of doing amazing things and I'm so blessed and so fortunate to do some of the amazing shit that I do if you haven't got someone to share that with you know and I never really saw that before but now I certainly do and I would love that, but it's not a need, it's a want and I think that's important as well.

25:24So what work are you doing at the moment to get to that point? The past couple of years it's been about doing new things, changing the way I do things, what I'm doing, finding things within my life that I genuinely enjoy. Give us some examples of what works for you. I mean, and these are really minor things. And this is always, I think, again, when people talk about making changes, they always think about the big changes. But actually, it's not the big changes. It's as simple as, for me, like motorbikes is a massive thing for me. I love it. I absolutely love it. I've got a really amazing group of friends that I ride with who are all just motorbike mad.

26:09They know nothing about my life, like nothing. It's a complete break from what I do on a day-to-day. And it's just, it's like a meditation for me. Because when you're on the bike, I don't think about anything. There's not a million things running through my head. It's literally just blank space. And that is really soothing because it's not like a million miles an hour. It's a really soothing thing to have because you're just there in the moment and living for the moment. And I think a lot of people don't do that. and the other, funny enough, which kind of segues into that is animals like my dogs I absolutely adore.

26:47I prefer animals to people by far for the main reasons. They live for the moment. They don't care what you look like, where you've been. They don't care where you're going. They're just happy there and that's a really beautiful, beautiful thing and if people were more like that then I think we'd all be a lot happier because whatever is happening there is the best thing that's ever happened and that's so beautiful and being around animals just makes me happy. And again, that's like a therapy thing and spending more time with animals and spending more time on the bike and giving myself that space to go, right, I need a day away from everything else to go on the bike and just refresh is really important because it's like a recharge.

27:26And things like that, even just doing them little things and giving myself the time and the space to do that really helps. Brilliant. Like really, really helps. And they're minor, minor things. Yeah, but that's why they're so valuable to people because I think that we think that if we've got some mental health challenges or we're not feeling that in a good place oh there must be a huge fix I need to do now yeah and it isn't like that it's about finding what works for you but the crucial thing I think you mentioned there at the end is I have to give myself the space to do it so how do you make sure that those things happen in your life regularly because too many people and they message us they're like I know what I love but life's too busy yeah but when life's too busy it passes you by and unfortunately you know and again like anything you know losing my name everyone loses grandparents that's life that's that's kind of the way it is but life really and it's so cliche but life really is too short you know and if you spend your whole life being busy working towards something then what's the point because you'll get to the destination but you won't remember any of the journey you know and that's a really pointless exercise.

28:31That's absolutely pointless. And I think for me it's about now recognising I feel like a lot's going on. I'm not in a good space. I need to give myself that time. So it's about booking that time off, doing whatever, and it's not about regularly doing it. You don't have to do it every Saturday, every whatever it may be because sometimes life is really busy and it's great that it's busy but sometimes it's busy and it's not good and that's when you have to go no I need the time out otherwise everything I do from this point will not be to the best of my ability and when you're doing things not to the best of your ability then what's the point it's kind of and you know that's part of the high performance thing everything I do I want to do to the best of my ability but I have to set myself up to be able to do that because as soon as you go into saying a 50 % of yourself you're not doing it to the best of your ability doesn't matter what it is that could be just be spending time with friends if you're only 50 % there then you're really spending time with them if you're going to work if you're only 50 % there you're really working the way you should be working if you are even if you're just supposed to be chilling out and you have a night yourself but if you're still everything's going through your head are you really chilling you're not because you're not refreshing giving yourself a night off or a day off but not doing something that makes you happy is pointless or doing something that you want to do if you're constantly doing things for other people as well that's not giving you the space to be you and do what you want to do and you can't help anyone unless you help yourself and how does the feeling manifest itself in you when you know the moment has come for you to take a break i'm snappy and harder on myself than i am i go back to 15 years ago and I can feel it.

30:16Because even at the minute, I'm doing strictly at the minute. It's a lot. I'm not a dancer. I've got no rhythm. But I love learning new things. I love learning new things. But it gets to a point where, if I'm not getting sang, I can feel myself getting really angry at myself. So at that point, I'm like, okay, I need to just pump outside and have a cigarette and just go, what are you doing? Have a word with yourself. and then go back in, refresh, and then suddenly it clicks again. Because when you go and do something and you're not in the right headspace to do it, you're never going to be able to do it.

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32:48Swipe, tap, ticket, go. GameTime.

32:56And you know, you saying that I just get snappy with myself, I get short with myself. Most people wouldn't think that those are symptoms of having an issue with your mental health, right? but they absolutely are and that's the other important thing we have to talk about is people think oh have you got oh you must be depressed or you must be sad all the time no that's not it so you know Mark Cavendish the cyclist he did a brilliant episode on high performance and he spoke about the fact that he was getting really wound up by the noise his wife was making walking around the house just the noise of her feet and he was irrationally furious and upset about it exactly the same thing we spoke about it on the show and then we got more than five but less than 20 messages right from men saying i think i've got a mental health problem because i didn't equate that to being a mental health problem but i get exactly the same thing i literally can't handle hearing my kids making a noise or hearing someone in the house make a noise and they've never spoken about it because they assumed that that's not what mental health is mental health can be an obsessive focus an obsessive focus on something like that is because there's stuff going on that you need a release for and i think that sometimes that's the case is that emotions and different feelings bubble up and build up with inside you that you can't understand you don't know why necessarily they're there and it may snowball and it could be one little thing two little things three little things and it becomes a bigger problem and then what you're looking for is a release your body your mind everything needs a release so you'll focus on something that may give you, and it's that fucking hell.

34:35Shut up. That's not anything to do with the noise because you would have heard that noise a million times before, but at that moment, that noise becomes the focus because of everything else, and that is exactly what mental health is. Mental health, everyone just assumes mental health is this big, you know, depressed, I want to lock myself away, and I don't want to, and they're the classic symptoms, and of course, yes, they are, but also it's the tiny symptoms everyone has well listen everyone has a brain everyone has a mind and that being healthy is important so mental health is not specific to some people i suffer with mental health i don't you do everyone does correct everyone does it's not a choice and it's not as some people have it some people don't we all do completely we all do and more people go, no, I don't suffer with any of that.

35:26You do. We all have anxiety. We all have those feelings. Some people aren't, you're not born with it. I don't have those feelings. We all have them. We all have the ability to feel them, but it's just at different points and different triggers and different reasons that some of those feelings can become consuming and overwhelming. You always had it, but something's happened that's triggered it. But actually, if we get to a point, especially in like younger people of people being able to talk and understand how they're feeling at that point. You know, it's not just happy, sad or angry. Within happy, there are loads of different feelings.

36:02There's loads of different kind of subplots to how you feel and trying to address those and work those out. And we've all got this amazing cocktail of emotions within us. And everyone's is different, completely different. But trying to understand your own cocktail is really, really important. and I think the younger that people start doing that, the easier it will become for them to navigate through dark times and good times. Because again, mental health is not just about bad times. Your mental health suffers when everything's great as well because you get this kind of, this is just the way it's going to be, but that crash is going to happen at some point.

36:37How do you deal with that? When you go on this roller coaster, reality TV is a prime example. You go from there to, and then if it doesn't stay like that, what happens because you don't know because you've got this high and you've kind of forgotten what it was like before and that's because just as people we don't understand or talk about feelings and emotions properly and I'm completely hypocritical for this because I don't and I haven't throughout my life so would you ever talk like this with your mates no I find it easier to talk to you because and I mean this in my respect because you're a stranger yeah does that make sense yeah so I find it easier to be around it's a lot safer to have this conversation with me Completely.

37:16And I find it a lot easier. If I'm not in a good place, I find it a lot easier to be around people I don't really know because they can't see me. So when I am down, sad or whatever else, I distance myself from everyone I love because I don't want to put the burden and the pressure on them. I don't want, you know, I just, but I can be around people that I don't necessarily know because I can front it and do whatever else. And I find it a lot easier to do that. And I think a lot of people do that. You kind of, you block out the people you love a little bit when you're feeling a certain type of way.

37:52And that's so selfish as well, because those people are there to love you and support you and you'd always be there for them. But you won't allow them to be there for you. And accepting help and accepting people's love, I find really difficult. and what popped out at the end there was another example of the lack of love self-love that it's not selfish pete to just sell from the people you love when you're in a difficult moment it isn't selfish it's just what you need to do i think that's one of the challenges that we often have is we are we're too quick to label our behavior as good or bad it just is yeah you know it just is and if anyone judges that behavior then maybe they're not the right people to be around you because you just have to do what is right and just because society tells you that when you're struggling you should hang out with the people that you love that's that's not right it's what works for you you know i said it earlier on that everyone has to uh find out a way it's not just about talking you can do different things that kind of help your mental health but yet i won't give myself the same thing that I would say to other people.

38:59You know, like I'm a lot of, and this is going to sound really weird, but amongst my kind of friends and people around me, I'm kind of the one that people go to for advice and whatever else because, you know, I can give good advice and I can, you know, listen and whatever else, but I cannot accept it myself and I don't follow my own advice. And it's also, you know, this is another thing about mental health. This sounds like I'm on a rant about mental health. advice I find really difficult when it comes to mental health examples I think are fine but you can't tell someone how to get through something they have to what you have to work out yourself you have to take responsibility to work it out yourself but be willing to do that and there's so many different tools and avenues you can go down to do that and and you have to be open to doing that but sometimes I think just having someone to listen to you you don't even have to say something just being able to speak your mind and work out yourself helps you it becomes quite cathartic and i think that's just as important as getting an answer you can't ask someone for the solutions to what's going on inside your head because they have no idea you have to find the solutions yourself and that's really a lonely place to be and i think that's that's probably the hardest part of it is that no one else can really help and that sounds really pessimistic and shit, but that's the truth.

40:23It has to start with you, and that's really lonely, but you have to be willing to do that, and you have to actually give yourself the time to do that, because if you don't, you're not going to get anywhere, and that's the dangerous part. What about therapy, though? Do you go and see therapists? Do you sit down and have these kinds of conversations with people? I don't. Why not? Because, and listen, my mum's had therapy, and I know so many people around me that have had therapy, and it's really helped them, and I would love to have therapy. I don't think I'm, and I've tried certain things, but I don't think I'm in a position where I will be honest.

41:01And then there's no point. How honest have you been for the last hour? Fairly honest. Only fairly honest. Yeah. Because I think there's still some things that I hold back on. Because of shame? Yeah. and I think until you fully accept where you're at, I think it's very difficult to move forward because you're not starting from the beginning, are you? Mate, I promise you, if you went to see a therapist and started... They'd have a fucking field day, wouldn't they? They might pay their mortgage off, right? Christ, this is a long one. Honestly, if you went... We'll get that extension. And if you went with the greatest shame, right, you'd be amazed at how things lift i came to london in my early 20s to be a kids tv presenter right and you would have i remember you might back in the day do you yeah makes me feel really old um and i had a real like a mental health challenge at that point right and the things that i was was thinking was so filled with shame and embarrassment i thought there's no way i can tell anyone it's very different to what you've you've experienced because this is something that You've lived with all your life, whereas I had an episode.

42:15And I went to see someone. She said, tell me the thing that is making you feel most shameful. I told her. And she just sort of almost laughed, like, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Yeah. She said, the fact that you're telling me tells me everything is fine. And that moment, everything changed. And I think you're so right. And so many people around me have said, Pete, just go. Go to therapy. And do you know what? part of it, and this is again really sad, is that I have always tried to be so independent, part of me still thinks I can work it out. Do you really believe you can? Yeah. But the evidence would suggest otherwise?

42:55Oh, the evidence would suggest that I'm absolutely nowhere near that. But my probably arrogance probably still thinks, surely you can do this. Surely you can do it. And that's wrong. Yeah. and I know that's wrong and so many people have told me and you know it's something that up until again like the kind of the book and actually speaking some of this stuff out loud because I've known you know there's stuff in the book that I'd never told my mum there's stuff in there that I'd never that people don't know about people that I've known you know 15, 20 years are like I didn't know that I didn't know that people that I've been around and probably up until the book I would have just said absolutely not and it's definitely something now that I am considering in.

43:38So total honesty on a scale of zero to ten, ten is going to therapy as soon as you leave this interview and zero is where you would have been when you were a lot younger, where would you be on that? Seven. I think that's a reason for optimism. Yeah, a hundred percent and again you know up until a couple of years ago it would have been no way I can figure this out and I will figure this out. Talking of optimism, we talk so often about challenges or traumas although you wouldn't call them traumas from our childhood, causing us issues and problems. But what about the great stuff that it gives us as well?

44:08You know, there's an awful lot of research of trauma leading to triumph. People talk about post-traumatic growth. What are your thoughts on that? I wouldn't be who I am today if it hadn't have been for any of the things that have happened throughout my life, the good, the bad and everything. The person that I am now is very different to the person I was 10 years ago and also the person I will be in 10 years is very different to who I am now. And I accept that and I love that kind of growth because it's the same reason when it comes to dating, I always say to people, I've never had a bad date and that's not because I'm a great date.

44:46That's because even if it doesn't work out the way you want it to, you can learn something from everyone you meet, whether it's good, bad and whatever else. And it's the same, I feel the same with the good and bad that happen in your life. There's things that you can take from that and positives that you can take. You know, regardless of some of the things that happen, I'm still here. And that's important. I'm still here and I'm still trying. And I'm still willing to try and I'm still willing to try and be better. That, to me, is a triumph. But also it's a triumph. I've seen it with my mum. From where she is and from the lowest of the low to where she is now is the biggest story of victory and triumph and success that you could ever imagine.

45:29And she is what I define as success because from the pits to where she is now is nothing short of a miracle. And there's so many people like that who don't get the credit they deserve because part of writing the book was I asked my mum's permission to tell the story. And she wanted the story to be told because it would help other people because other people have been in similar situations or maybe feeling in a similar way and feel like there isn't a way out of that. and she's proof that there is. And that's the most inspiring thing I think I've ever experienced personally to me. But also there's so many stories like that of inspiration and people that have been to that level of despair.

46:15Being an inspiration is the complete antithesis to that. But that's where you can come from. And that's such a beautiful thing. So no matter how shit life is, you know, out of the shit beautiful things grow I genuinely believe that so yeah things are shit sometimes but what can you take from that to move forward and I kind of always look at that and it's the same with you know good things good things happen but also there's lessons to be learned in good things and again that sounds really pessimistic but there's lessons to be learned out of the good things because we can all be good people and nice people and everything's going well but But the danger with that is that that's when people lose themselves.

46:56Staying grounded and humble and relatable, I think, is so important. So, yeah, from bad things, good things can happen. But also from good things, I think sometimes bad things can happen if you're not careful. There's like a two-way thing to that. Sure. But everything teaches you saying you're constantly learning for the rest of your life. I'll be 80 years old, hopefully, and I'll still be learning. and that's the beautiful thing about relationships and people as well is that every day someone will surprise you it doesn't matter how close you're you're married yeah yeah you and your wife couldn't be more close connected but you will never ever know what she's actually thinking and vice versa yeah how exciting and beautiful was that do you know what i mean like when you're old you're still gonna like be like what that's such a that's such a lovely joyful thing.

47:42And that's why the overwhelming emotion that I think you need to have about your life is optimism. Yeah, probably. Not happiness, not joy, not contentment, not self-worth, not yet, one day. But you should at least have optimism that you can get there. And I think I do, yeah. And I wouldn't have said that a few years ago. But I do, because I think it's steps in the right direction. And actually, rather than being stagnant in a position where I probably was for 15 years of I'm moving forward. And, you know, moving forward, it doesn't matter what pace you're moving forward, you're still moving forward.

48:19And that's really important. You don't have to be running a million miles an hour. You could be crawling on the floor, but you're still moving in the right direction. And I think that's a really important thing for me and for a lot of people, is to just keep moving in the right direction. I love it, mate. And I wonder, final question before we move on to our little quickfire round, I wonder where this mindset leaves you when you do things like Strictly. So you're doing Strictly come dancing at the moment. Does all of that mean that the public vote on a Saturday night actually doesn't matter? Or does it carry a lot of weight for you?

48:56It matters based on the fact that I'll leave the competition if they don't vote for me. But it matters to me that, because this is something completely new for me, like Strictly, I never in a million years thought I'd be doing that. I know a lot of people do Strictly. it's been my dream and no it wasn't my dream but I'm here and I'm loving it and actually that performance on a Saturday night if I come out off the back of that performance and get four ones from the judges but I've done the best that I can I can't give a monkey's what would your nan make of it? she would have loved it yeah she grew up with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and all that sort of stuff, and I don't think she ever imagined that I'd be doing ballroom dancing on a Saturday night, do you know what I mean?

49:47That was kind of their era, wasn't it? You know, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, she'd have loved that. And hopefully, you know, hopefully there's one song that we might be doing, which is very special to me at some point, if I'm in long enough, which is going to be a bit of a tribute to her. Because she had the best sense of humour, so she'd have found it hilarious watching me strut around like a tit. You know what I mean? But yeah, I would have loved for her to have seen it. Yeah. She'd be proud, right? I would hope so. I think you know so. I would hope so. Come on, man. Some quick fire questions.

50:25Here we go. The first one actually is about your nan. The greatest piece of advice that she ever gave you. The biggest thing you learned from your nan. From my nan. No one is better than you, but you're better than no one. She used to say that to me all the time. regardless regardless of background and everything else lovely what daily habit that you've taken on in the last few years has most positively impacted your daily life not looking at my phone first thing in the morning why because i think as soon as you wake up and i wake up quite early looking at your phone straight away you're straight into anything without giving yourself the breather in the morning to go so i go outside with the dogs i have a coffee cigarette before i look at my phone and i think that's that's so important because it just gives you even that that 10 minutes of just what are we going to do today without knowing what you're doing today how am i going to be today and also i feel like it gives you i know this is not quick fire now i'm waffling but it gives you that moment to sense how you feel because each day you wake up and you might and I know why you're in a mood or why something doesn't feel right.

51:35It gives you that 10 minutes to go, I feel good. Or do you know what I mean? And then it can set you up for how you prepare for the rest of the day. Very nice. What's your biggest strength? You might struggle with that one. And what's your greatest weakness, which I'm sure you'll find easy. Oh, yeah, that's easy. But do you know what I'm going to say is actually the same answer for both. Being a perfectionist. I think it's a good strength. I want everything to be right and to do everything the best I can at any point. But also this biggest weakness, because if it doesn't always happen and you need more work, I blame myself.

52:09So it's the same answer for both. When did you last cry? The weekend. And why? Because something came on the telly, it reminded me of my nan. She had a real... That was... I shouldn't have said that, should I? She had a real impact on you, didn't she? you what what was it about your nan that was golden she was my safety net she was um she was my best friend um she just had something about that just made me feel safe wanted loved and was just she was just everything if you know if she'd have still been around and i'd have got married she'd have been my best man she was just she was just an angel i did like being around her instantly made everything better and it's not because of advice or anything it's because she just listened and i could tell her she knew everything about me every single thing beautiful and that is beautiful because 99 of people have the emotion when they think of their grandparents of we should ask them more questions we should have known them you know you had that and i think that's special yeah it's really special because she was she wasn't my nan first she was she was and weirdly enough it was the last thing she ever said to me was was that we were soulmates and like I believe that I don't know what it is and do you know what's nice is it's not something that I've realised after she'd gone I realised it when she was here is that there was just something I don't know how to explain it I think sometimes people meet that kind of person in a partner or a friend or whatever else and I was just really fortunate to have it all wrapped up in my nan Lovely and the final question before you go and have that much-earned cigarette outside.

53:53I'm sorry, yeah. I'm sorry, man. It's quite deep, isn't it? What's your one golden rule that you'd like to leave people thinking about for living a high-performance life? One golden rule. Do everything to the best of your ability, whatever that may look like. And of you? I am now. I love that. Listen, I know that people might not think naturally that getting through the tough days, right, and dealing with the challenges that are often only in our heads that no one can see is high performance. But that's exactly what high performance is. And I think the fact that you've been able to sit here and say that you are now doing the best you can, you've got to get to a place where you know there's nothing more you can do.

54:40Pete, the best you can, where you are with what you've got. You said it right at the start. That's all it is. But you have to believe that. And I really hope you do, because I think you've got so much to offer, so much to give. It's one of the most powerful conversations we've ever had in this room and we've had a lot of them. And even if you're not wholly in love with yourself 24-7, please reflect on that last hour and be incredibly proud of what you shared. I thank you for having me. But also that's probably the most honest I've been in a long time with anyone and that's based on you as a person.

55:13That's kind of you. Thank you, my friend. and that's it for this conversation do you know what i would urge you please um reach out on social media not just to me but to pete as well and tell him what you made of that episode in that conversation because i promise you it isn't easy to sit and talk in that way it was a really emotional discussion at times but i think it was very brave of pete and i think it would really be powerful for him for you to let him know just how much you value the conversation that we just had but listen please do hit the follow button please do subscribe to high performance please do keep on telling people about these fascinating conversations remain humble curious and empathetic and i'll see you again soon

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