Stepping outside of your comfort zone

0:00Hey everyone, welcome along to the latest episode of the High Performance Podcast Podcast. Now, every Wednesday for the subscribers to High Performance Plus, Damien or myself, we just kind of sit and chat and share our thoughts, really. And we actually thought that this Wednesday we would allow everyone to have a listen into this, not just the people who subscribe to our subscription service. Because I want to talk to you about, I guess, being out of your comfort zone, really, the power of fear and worry and anxiety. so we're currently on tour with the high performance podcast and i do a big sort of piece during our tour nights about using fear as a throttle not a break and i know that many of you come to high performance because you don't want stupid useless cliched comments like that you actually want some substance so i want to give you some substance really i want to talk to you about how fear can be used as a throttle rather than a break and why it's so important so let me be totally honest okay being on stage doing a live show is myself and professor damien hughes well out of our comfort zone i remember actually standing backstage a few weeks ago at the london palladium and like this is the palladium by the way so underneath the stage you've got the ashes of bruce forsyth um you've got the royal box to your left you've got about 3 000 seats in front of you trust me going on stage at the london palladium is a good way to scare yourself and Damien and I at the beginning of the show we stand behind these led screens which part and we walk out like a couple of well I was going to say like a couple of rock stars but probably more like a couple of nervous x-factor contestants and then we walk out and just before we went out I kind of grabbed Damien's hand as a here we go let's do this together because I think it's really good to always remember the journey you've been on so I just grabbed his hand and said listen bro this started out with me and you getting on a train heading down to the south coast to interview Ben Ainslie with you know a microphone and not much else hoping for the best and look where we are now about to walk out of the Palladium and I think it's really important sometimes to remember the journey you've been on and the things that you've done and where you've got to but anyway back to what I talk about on stage I talk about fear being a throttle not a break and how do you do that well I think actually we can take the high performance live tour as a really good example the first thing that we were worried about is would people come and see us would people buy tickets and whether it's you know the packed out theatre royal and norwich for our first night selling the london palladium tickets or nottingham where we've already been we had to turn that fear that people wouldn't come into a throttle so the way we did that was we decided to market it and talk about it and promote it and discuss it everywhere we could and message all of our friends and say please don't let us play to an empty theater with three people in so we leaned into it we used it as a throttle we used it to inspire us to do even better and then look i want to be really clear about this like high performance is something that none of us do because we want to make money from the people that listen to the podcast or the people that engage with us which is why no matter what happens there will always be an option for you to listen to high performance totally free of charge so when people are paying like you know 30 40 50 quid sometimes more to come and see us on stage, we really feel a huge responsibility, particularly in the current climate, to deliver.

3:15So how do we use the fear that people aren't going to get much out of our show as a throttle, not a break? Well, we lean into it. We go through the archive. We try and find as many lessons as possible. We bring out clips from high-performance podcasts that people have long forgotten about, wonderful little nuggets of wisdom. We discuss how we can make those relevant to people currently. We try and put on an amazing show with Kai Soans, who has performed on the x factor and is now one of the singers with lost frequencies he recently wrote believe which was nominated for a brit award the song that david getter and becky hill released like he wrote that song and he performs it on stage and there's a great lesson a message behind what kai talks about we decided to line up some incredible guests roxina fusi owen okay and jamie peacock i'll talk about them in a second so we decided to use that fear to make sure that this tour had real value so that every single person who bought a ticket left at the end of the night feeling uplifted, inspired and equipped to live the life that they want to live.

4:13And I really want you to use that as your message today. You know, Marcus Aurelia said, our life is dyed by the colour of our thoughts. And there's stuff all around us that's sent to test us. There's negativity, there's bad news, there's challenges all around us. But your life is dyed by the colour of your thoughts. If you see those challenges as a throttle, not a break, it will change the way you see the world. optimists are happier than pessimists and it's not just the mindset it's because good things happen to optimists why because they're expecting to see them if someone says to me what's the one trait you've noticed on your guests on high performance it's that they're optimists it's that they expect great things to happen so when that opportunity arises which may well be an opportunity that's there for anyone and everyone they grab it with both hands particularly those guests who are self-made, who've come from nothing, who had the worst possible start you could imagine, but went on to do incredible things.

5:08How did they do it? They were optimistic. But we know life's a challenge. We know it's difficult for a lot of people. And that is why one of the guests that we have on our High Performance Tour is Owen O 'Kane. He was on one of the most talked about and shared episodes ever of High Performance. He's a psychotherapist. He's a psychologist. He's an amazingly inspiring guy. He'll be on stage with us in Northampton, in just a few days and other tour dates as well. Here's a quick clip from his episode with us. Our thoughts are not a fact. You know, all of this stuff that we spiel out every day, I mean, most of it's just rubbish.

5:44And it's just regenerated. Patterns are played over and over and over again. But the stuff like, you know, the internal voice saying, you're weak, you're pathetic, you're rubbish, you're shit, you're not good enough. We tend to gravitate to that stuff like magnets. because we may have heard it before somewhere along the line and we kind of tend to hold on to that stuff. So we kind of get attracted to it because we think, God, could that be true? So we start to then link and engage with it and then the minute we start to link and engage with it, we start overthinking. And the minute we start overthinking, in psychology we call it metacognitive processing, you start to then overthink.

6:18You start to think about the thought and then suddenly it snowballs and then suddenly you're overwhelmed with just this avalanche of negative thoughts. so it's about learning that skill of standing back you know can you start to observe it all just as noise now what an inspiring guy and when owen walks out on stage i tell you the whole place goes quiet owen has the floor for 20 minutes and i actually said to him i said look i'm worried that people are going to come along and think oh 20 minutes with owen i've been shortchanged that's not enough time to make a difference and he said to me listen you can make a difference to someone's life in 30 seconds if you say the right things 20 minutes is more than enough time and people leave like honestly lifted up and inspired oh by the way um owen is also going to be with us in glasgow as well as northampton um we've also got roxie and a fousey with us she'll be on stage in oxford she was with us at the london palladium um she's a manifest expert her book has i don't know spent about 16 000 years in the sunday times bestsellers list she's really inspiring as well Here's a brief clip from when she joined us on the podcast.

7:23Maybe I'm choosing this. Maybe I'm allowing myself to stay in this place. And maybe, you know, it's both exciting and incredibly scary to understand that you are responsible for your life and for your happiness and for what your life is going to be like. But choose to see it as an exciting thing. so you can expect more of that kind of thing from roxy when we're in oxford and also if you want to come and see the shows in leeds and in salford we are joined by a rugby league legend jamie peacock here's his clip that went viral about the one percents when i got into the first team i thought i'm just going to do all those kind of little one percenters that other people i'm smart enough to recognize you know what one percenters are pieces of action that don't require talent you know you just require effort to do that and i thought i can i can ace these lots of people have talent in rugby but to really push yourself to get into a situation where you can get hurt when you're physically tired i think it's a skill in itself and i thought they're they're like areas that i can be good at over other people so there you go those are some of the guests who'll be with us on stage for the theater show as well as that we've got loads of clips loads of episodes from the podcast loads of lessons and learnings amazing music from kai we're joined every single tour night by a local listener and we really try and make you the audience the very heart of what we're doing so i'd really encourage you if you haven't already to get hold of a ticket for the show we'd love to see you there we'd love to share the night with you but if you don't please just remember this challenge difficulty setbacks negativity hard times try your very best to use them as a throttle, not a brake.

9:11Lean into them. Take the inspiration. Take the energy. Make sure that you remember what Marcus Aurelius said. Life is dyed by the colour of your thoughts. So as soon as you finish this episode, make sure you think about the colour you want your thoughts to be. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon on stage somewhere. Take care.