


16 Jul 2025 · 31m

This episode explores the dynamics of performance and memory, featuring Gary Barlow, who shares his concept known as the "Show Graph." This method emphasizes creating memorable moments rather than striving for perfection. Barlow's insights can be applied to various situations, from leading meetings to giving impactful presentations.
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1:52and it was this wave of bringing an audience through a performance which really fascinated me and i always call it the show graph welcome to the essential habits of high performance the show where we break down the psychology the mindset and the strategies behind some of the world's most remarkable performers i'm damian hughes i've worked as a visiting professor of organizational behaviour and I've been lucky enough to work with elite coaches from a wide range of different industries and sports. Most importantly I love understanding the science and the psychology behind high performance and how we can all use it to our own advantage.
2:36Today we're looking at what it really takes to take people with you to inspire, to lead and to perform and leave people with a lasting impression. Our guide is one of the most successful performers of his generation, Gary Barlow. When I sit at the piano, magic happens because this song that I'm making today will go on a record and people will be singing it in stadiums and piano's a good place. We all know him as a frontman, I take that, right? The guy who wrote Back for Good, Patience and ruled the world. Genuine stadium anthems. But here's what people don't always know. Gary Barlow is basically a memory engineer.
3:18Yep. And whilst this title probably doesn't appear on his CV, he's not just a singer-songwriter. The man is a master of emotional architecture. He doesn't write songs. He builds journeys. He seems to understand deep in his bones how to take people somewhere emotionally mentally and even spiritually for a 90 minute show or a three minute song and here's the fascinating thing he didn't learn it in some posh drama school or some fancy music conservatoire he learned it in the smoky unforgiving world of northern men's clubs now one of my personal favorite television shows of all time is peter k's phoenix nights If you've ever watched it, it's easy to picture exactly where 18-year-old Gary sat behind the keyboard, playing for comedians, pub singers or whoever was on that night, watching, studying and learning the rhythm of a room.
4:15What Gary figured out through years of trial and error and probably a few nights where no one clapped is actually backed up by science and it's called the peak-end rule. It's how our brains remember experiences Not by the full timeline But by the peaks And how it ends Gary is not just writing chart toppers He seems like he's shaping memories And if you want to build high performing teams Craft unforgettable customer experiences Or even give a speech at a wedding or something like that You might want to steal a page from his set list And in this episode We'll look at how you can do it However you want to In the show notes, you'll find links to the studies and research which I reference.
5:01Before he embarked on the sold-out stadium tours, the musicals, the TV judging panels, Gary Barlow was learning his craft in his bedroom, locking himself away for weeks at a time, learning how to make music. So I'd got the little keyboard for my 10th Christmas, and within weeks they couldn't believe how much I could make this thing do. I could literally make this thing talk within like an hour or two. I was playing Christmas carols and they weren't pushy parents. They're still not, but they saw something and thought, let's enhance this. And so he took me off to this music shop and we asked the guy in there, where do we go from here?
5:44And the guy said, oh, this is the thing over here and took us over to this. they're called electron these organs Yamaha organs sort of early 80s models two keyboards or manuals they call them draw bars and bass pedals so it's a little bit like you know patting your head and rubbing your tummy you your right hand's doing one thing your left hand's doing and your feet are doing notes on the bass pedals so of course I went off into the bedroom for six months and just literally didn't get off the stool, learnt this thing back to front and opened the door one day and I could play it, I could make it work.
6:22Where he went was to some of the toughest, most honest rooms in Britain, the working men's clubs of Northern England. Now he wasn't centre stage, not quite yet. He was behind the keyboard watching these performers, watching how they controlled the room, how they handled the silence, where they looked and what they did when things weren't going quite according to plan. People talk about this 10 ,000 hours thing a lot and it really relates to music and it was one of the things that used to frustrate me so much when I was on X Factor was that people think they can just walk on a stage and it just the magic just happens.
7:01You might have a great voice but it's not enough. You might have a great song but it's not enough. It's this being on a stage and slowly learning what works and what doesn't, what people relate to, how to work an audience over an hour, how to do these things. And what was fascinating for me was, is that when I was playing in these clubs, I'd often be sat behind the artist, the person I wanted to be I was sat behind them I was playing either instrumentation for them or just playing them onto the stage like Ken Dodd or Bob Monkow they'd have a song that they'd play to get them on the stage I'd do that and then you'd sit I'd have the best view because I'd be watching what they were seeing so I could see them so cleverly work in the room even to the point where now and again comedians would point at something and I knew they were looking at their watch to see how long they'd done.
8:01And it was this wave of bringing an audience through a performance which really fascinated me. And I always call it the show graph. And over time you realise that you're stood on this stage, I'm losing them, I'm losing them. And it's this way of reading an audience which is so, I mean, it's just like experience of doing that. It's just, you can't tell somebody how to do it. They have to learn how to do it personally by going through the nights where you don't even get an applause or you've got to go through that to learn how to make an audience do what you want them to do. I love hearing these little tricks, how comedians subtly check the watches, not to check the time, but to track the rhythm.
8:49Gary saw which performers won the room and which ones lost it and why they did and this is where he started building his mental model something that as we heard he calls the show graph and there's a really interesting line which he says next that I want you to pay particular attention to It's just being up there and having bad nights it's being up there and getting the set list wrong it's being up there and you know not finishing with the right song Listen to that it's the mistakes the bad nights that count this wasn't a theory from a textbook it was something that he learned through his immersion through trial and error and this is the important point for anyone that's looking to master a craft immersing yourself in the detail because his mastery starts not with his talent but with his attention the kind that watches from the wings taking mental notes and keeps showing up.
9:45So what is the show graph? Well, it's Gary Barlow's invisible script, his emotional rhythm of a great performance. And according to him, this is what it looks like. You've got to open strong. And I take this to, you know, we're playing Hyde Park in this summer. And, you know, at the early meetings we have, it's like, you've got to open right. If you don't open properly, it's like an uphill climb then. and so all these things that I learned back then they still relate to now that doesn't change that doesn't whether you know we're uploading or downloading things you know music on a stage in front of an audience is is never going to change those first three songs you want to hit your audience hard with those first three songs so they're absolutely jumping they can't believe it and then you work towards the lowest point of the show the bit that's its smallest where you're just you and the piano and your voice that's the bit you work towards and then you work towards the climb which is what i call you're on your way home now and that's that last 40 minutes of hit after hit after hit and then you give them the last song you know the flutter fetty goes off and and off you go and here's the thing that carrie's talking about here it's not just about the music the graph applies to how we give speeches how we teach how we sell how we manage other people it's all about outpacing our emotional energy.
11:07Let's break it down, right? So the first one is you've got the opening where first impressions matter. If the energy in the room is low, you're going to spend the rest of your time digging yourself out of a hole. The middle, this is where vulnerability and connection takes center stage. The quiet moment where you can hold people's attention without putting on a big spectacle. The climb is where you're starting to build energy. You're rewarding people's attention now, and then the final one is the ending. This is the crescendo, your legacy, your final note. And that structure lines up perfectly with psychological science.
11:46When Gary Barlow was learning this through his own instincts and experience, at the same time, two psychology powerhouses were exploring and looking to validate it. Let me introduce you to Daniel Kahneman and Barbara Fredrickson. Now Kahneman, I've no doubt many of you are aware, he's basically a rock star in the world of behavioural science. He's a Nobel Prize winner, a best-selling author. You might have read his book, Thinking Fast and Slow. Well, that's him. His work totally flipped the script on how we understand decision-making. He showed that we're not nearly as rational as we like to think we are.
12:24Instead, he described how we're influenced by mental shortcuts, what he called heuristics, and how little biases quietly shape everything from how we buy our breakfast cereal to how we recall memories. Barbara Fredrickson, on the other hand, is the queen of positive psychology. Where Kahneman mapped out how we think, Fredrickson zoomed out on how we feel. Her research showed us that positive emotions aren't just a nice bonus, that are essential to humans being able to flourish. She coined the famous broaden and build theory, which is basically where we feel joy, gratitude or hope. Our minds will open up, we get more creative, more resilient and we get better at building relationships.
13:10Now together these two, Kahneman with his cold clinical experiments and Fredrickson with a warm, expansive emotional lens, gave us this beautiful insight that how we remember an experience is deeply emotional. It's not about the duration, it's about the moments that move us and how it all ends. In their 1993 paper, When Pain is Preferred to Less, Adding a Better End, they shared their surprising finding that we don't remember events evenly. We remember experiences based on two key moments, the peak and the end, which is conveniently enough why it's called the peak-end rule. In one study, Kahneman and Fredrickson asked participants to immerse their hand in painfully cold water, and they had to do it twice.
13:59The first time, they had to do it for 60 seconds at 14 degrees. Then second time round, they had to do it again for 60 seconds at 14 degrees before the water temperature was raised to 15 degrees for a further 30 seconds. Then they were asked, which one would you prefer to repeat? Now, you'd expect them, like I would, to pick the shorter, the less painful one But 80 % of people chose the longer experience Why? Because it ended slightly better That's a peak-end rule in action And this has got big implications for performance leadership And how we design people's experiences So let's get practical It's one thing to admire Gary Barlow's mastery of performance and it's another one to say, right, that's nice, but what does this mean for me and you?
14:50I mean, I'm sure most of us aren't headlining arenas or writing chart-topping musicals, but we're all performing in some way or another. Whether we lead in a team meeting, we've got to deliver a pitch, give a talk to someone or even run a tough one-on-one conversation. The stage might be different, but the principle's still the same. It's about how you take people on that journey. and here's where Gary's show graph becomes such a powerful tool. So let me offer you three guiding principles that are drawn from the psychology of memory and inspired by Gary Barlow's set list design. The first habit is this, open strong.
15:29Don't ease your way into whatever it is you're doing. Don't warm up while people are watching. Hit the ground running. Think of a concert, right? If the opening song's a filler track, the energy just drops. but if it's a banger, if it's something that the crowd knows and feels, the atmosphere just lifts in seconds. The same is true for you, right? Whether you're walking into a room or you're logging onto a Zoom call, your first words set the tone. So ask yourself, are you arriving with clarity? Are you communicating with confidence and are you giving people a reason to lean in and listen. Start with a story, a start, a ball claim or something that says this matters.
16:11The second habit is create an emotional core. Now this is a bit most people skip but it's where, as Gary explained to us, real connection takes place. It's that quiet moment in the middle of his show where it's just him, his piano and a room full of people hanging on his every word. He doesn't have lights here or dancers, just his own truth. And here's the thing to remember. Memory loves emotion. It doesn't mean drama, it means depth. In your world, this might be part of a talk where you stop sharing the data and you start sharing something about you, something personal or vulnerable. It might be a story that made you think or change your view.
16:54This is where you can build trust, where people feel seen when the broom goes still. because here's what the research shows us people don't remember average they remember emotion the peaks and the troughs the highs and the lows so don't be afraid just to slow it down a little and the third habit is finish on a high you know what people remember the most we've just discussed it the end that's what it's called the peak end rule we don't judge experiences about how they feel across the board we judge them on how they feel at their best moment and at the last moment so however your sessions go in finish with a bit of clarity a bit of purpose something that says this was worth your time wrap it up with a challenge a quote a strong next step or just a moment of shared celebration because when people walk out or log off the zoom call the feeling that they carry with them is what they'll remember and you get to choose what that feeling is so think about how this would work in a business setting right you might be doing a product launch that kicks off with energy a heartfelt story in the middle and end with a bold call to action you might do a team off site that opens with inspiration then you go deep and personal halfway through and then you wrap it up by celebrating your shared wins even if you're having a one-on-one performance review can follow the same rhythm begin with recognition of the individual tackle the development with raw honesty and then end with belief and encouragement and momentum for where you're going to take this next.
18:27It's the same graph, it's just a different stage. So in this episode we've covered how you don't leave memory to chance. High performers engineer those moments and that's what Gary Barlow taught us. Not just about standing on stage and designing experiences that stick, whether it's in a stadium or a staff room. So next time you've got something important to communicate, today's essential habit is to ask yourself, what's my opening moment where's the emotional core and how can i finish in a way that lifts the mood you don't need a spotlight to create a show graph you just need to be intentional that's how you move people and that's how you make it matter so finally let's hear from gary on how using this habit has ensured his confidence to deliver in those key moments is robust i think back a lot to who I was back in those teenage years.
19:24I mean, honestly, the confidence was through the roof. And I think it's because I was good. I was good at what I did and I was confident in it. I could sit and play and I didn't even need to look at the keys. It was just going. It just sounded great. I've really found my voice early. I could get up in front of audiences and pretty much, in a whole week of gigs, six out of ten, I could have a standing ovation every night. I really knew what I was doing. I knew how to get good reactions. I really believed it was going to be successful. And when it was, it wasn't that much of a surprise to me. It really felt like, yeah, I've put my time into this.
20:08I'm now going to be joined by our brilliant producer, Will, who's been with us here on the podcast since the very beginning. And we're going to have a listen to Gary talking about the way his dad nurtured his talent in the early days, the determination he showed when he was being repeatedly rejected, and how he recognises there was a time when he became simply unbearable.
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22:37so will let's do a review of uh mr gary barlow now can you say his name without without doing the impression honestly the amount of times i say oh we're doing something on gary everyone's like gary barlow i don't think you can stop yourself doing it and it's nothing in a mean way but i think that's how most people respond in gary barlow yeah uh gary barlow So we get notified he's coming on. And all of a sudden, a few more people show up than normal. Everybody was available. Everyone was down there. The girls came down. They invited partners. Parents were even invited. So it shows you the kind of impact that Gary has.
23:18And it's probably one of the only times where there's a group photograph with the whole team and Gary afterwards. Normally that doesn't really happen. So he's definitely someone who carries a weight with his name, but couldn't have been nicer, couldn't have been more down to earth, grounded. Unfortunate to have worked with him before. And he's just an amazing person at making everyone feel comfortable. But what's that story that you told me about him when you went into his dressing room? Yeah, so I worked on Gary's team very briefly, helping do some stuff around social media. This is on a BBC One show that he's a host of and he's a judge.
23:56and then afterwards everyone comes to the dressing rooms and invites a lot of people and most of the time people don't know everyone. He goes around, every single person in the room, introduces them to the other person, tells them what they do, offers everyone a drink. I know that sounds really simple but he just bonds the whole room together. He's like, you're in my environment, I'm the host and I'll make you feel comfortable. Well, when you told me that, that just instantly left me well disposed to him. I thought, this is a decent bloke here that whatever anyone else wants to say about him. And we'll talk about what he talks about himself, how he's perceived.
24:32But we also went to go and see his one-man show, didn't we, when we were preparing for this. Me and you went on to the Palladium to watch it. And we spoke in the first half about how he's a master storyteller. His show graph takes people with him on a journey. And that was the first time I'd ever sort of appreciated just where he'd come from and the heights that he'd reached. There was that particular bit when he sort of talks about his father's passing away and he sings Rule the World because he recounts about how his dad had given the wings to go and do it. Let's listen to the clip when he talks about how his dad had nurtured this talent from the very beginning.
25:10The day that my dad sort of realised what he'd done for me was when he brought the neighbours round and they sat on my bed and I played for them and the wife was crying and the husband was on his feet clapping his hands because they enjoyed it so much. And my dad turned to me and said, if you can do that to people, you'll have a job for the rest of your life. And I was 11 at that point. So it was really like, okay, where do we go from here? It was massive, massive for me as a child to have my dad sell all his time off at work to buy me this. I think it was sort of 1981 and I think it was about 400 pounds.
25:48So a lot of money to spend on your youngest child. so it was yeah it was it was enormous I think what it unlocked in me was this passion for music and I'd been given this small bit of raw talent that meant I could buy a learn a tune and knock it out and play it quite well and I wanted more when I started and I could do play these songs I wanted more, wanted to be better, faster, playing more complicated pieces. It was like an obsession. Like I'd get home from school and play till I went to sleep. Even on gig nights, I'd get home after playing for four hours, put my headphones on and play till four in the morning.
26:32I just couldn't get enough. And that went on for years and years and years until I could read music. I was playing in bigger clubs. I was playing every night of the week. the door opened then to starting to sing. Oh, there's a few lines in there that I really love. That if you can do that to people, you'll have a job for life. Like your dad identifying that and you making people feel that way at that age. He really like painted a great picture. But what a kind of sacrifice his dad had made. 400 quid in 1981. It's expensive now, isn't it? So you imagine what it would have been then. Like there's the other bit that I really enjoyed.
27:10You know when he talks about when he first went to do an audition at a working men's club and his dad saw the people that were going to make the decision and he said, play Colonel Bogey. Because he knew they were sort of like old war vets and he'd actually be playing to their wheelhouse that he'd get the job on the back of it. This is a bloke to me that was just really astute, a man that was really perceptive. But more than that, just really encouraging to his lad. It's almost like the start of his journey. His talent had been identified. And then I think the next clip kind of identifies the graft and the hustle he did to even get an opportunity and get noticed.
27:49So what my day would often consist of is it's Monday morning. I get on the train. It's a four hour train journey at this point. You get to London. You go and sit at EMI Records in reception waiting to see somebody. And some days you'd sit there for six hours and no one would come. You'd get back on the train and go back home. and so that went on for like one or two years and I realised I'm getting nowhere, I'm not even seeing people, I can't get appointments, I've sent cassettes into radio stations, I'm just getting nowhere. I thought right and what I need is I need a partner, I need someone who's between me and the label, a manager to go and do that job for me while I'm writing and singing and that's when I did all the applications to the local management companies and landed at Nigel Martin Smith's office in Manchester.
28:40And he was, I mean, he wasn't like a big music guy. He owned a model agency, but he'd had an act that had been in the charts and he had in his office a gold disc on his wall. And so of course I went in there and I was like looking at this gold disc, that's where I want to be? How do I get there? At the end of the first meeting I had with Nigel, I put a cassette together in an envelope and it had six of my original songs on it. And I put the songs on his desk and he said, nice to meet you. I'll let you know what I think. And I left the office. But as I left, I turned around and I said, you will listen to that cassette, won't you?
29:23And he said, yeah, yeah. I went, no, please. I really want you to listen to that cassette. And I think, I think it stuck with him that he mentioned it a couple of times years later so in the time I'd got back to my car in Manchester and got home to Frodsham which is about 45 minutes there was like 10 messages on our answer phone When you see him now performing these sellout concerts and things like that you think his life is just one long glamorous world and then you hear about two years of getting the train down sitting for six hours, nobody talking to you. Two years he did that. Well, he didn't tell the story when he was with us, but I remember in the research, reading his book, and he tells about once he went into Elton John's record company and the guy took real glee in throwing his cassette over his shoulder into the bin.
30:14You know, like, so this is sort of like a brutal industry that he's trying to navigate his way through. So it's a good example where talent is just the starting point. The perseverance, the willingness to keep positioning yourself in a chance to showcase your talent is actually what I really admire him for. What about the next clip? So now I think we're going to jump to the effect that that probably fame, money and everything does bring of what it can actually do to you. Why don't we listen to the time when Gary talks about what an unbearable person he became? I think I was unbearable. I really do.
30:53I really do. I think about it a lot actually. because, you know, I look at my band members over the years, I think, God, they've put up with a lot with me. I was right all the time, and I was the leader all the time. That original role I'd been given, I didn't give any of it up as the years went on. It needed to end. The band needed to end because we did all end with a handshake at the end, and everyone went their separate ways, and, you know, Rob had got out a little early. It was all getting too much for him, and I needed to go off and do what I did next. It's easy looking back on this now and having, because of course where I'm at now in my life, it's such a great place that I have to look back and go, God, I needed to fail.
31:39I really needed to fail because I just don't think I could, it couldn't carry on in that way. It just, it would have been so, I'd have never met anybody or got married. I just, it was just too unbearable to be around. I mean, is that a consequence of just needing to get put in your place or being the leader for too long, not sharing the limelight, the creativity, or is it just the fact that you just need to, yeah, fail to understand where you went wrong? Well, when Gary was describing that, I had real empathy with him because when I went to school, Mark Owen's parents lived just at the back of where our school was.
32:20So I remember that you'd see when they're in the pond, like hundreds and thousands of young girls hanging out outside. It's just an ordinary terraced house. So you realise just how seductive it must have been for him to start believing that everything he did, he couldn't fail. You know, everything he touched turned to gold. So that can, I imagine, have that really seductive impact on your perspective, your decency, the values that your parents have got suddenly could become unanchored. yeah and I think what I took from it was everyone needs input and wants to feel valued I think when you're doing something that's kind of creative you know if you're the leader and you say it's this way and there's no other way to do it people can't buy into that forever and I think you know you've heard so many times of bands and other places where the songwriter makes all the money he writes all the songs and then the band split up and the successful ones are the ones where the songwriter values the input of everyone around him or her and they share in those kind of royalties and the band will be successful for longer.
33:30So, you know, you want to have a voice no matter where you are in that pecking order of creativity and talent. Yeah, and to go back to the theme of today's whole episode, Gary's taking us there to the emotional core of it, the moment where he's at his most vulnerable. and I think what's been great is that when he takes us there, we also understand the rest of the context of the climb and then the end where, you know, the second wind of Take That has been for longer and far more successful than that first time because he learned those lessons and was willing to embrace them. Thanks for listening to The Essential Habits of iPerformance.
34:07If you've enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who's building their own journey and remember, people don't remember everything. to remember how you make them feel at the peak and at the end. I'm Damien Hughes. See you next time.
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This episode is all about something we don’t talk about enough in high performance, not just how we deliver, but how we’re remembered.
When I sat down with Gary Barlow, he talked me through something he calls the Show Graph, a way of shaping emotion and energy through a performance. It’s not about perfection. It’s about creating moments that connect, and leaving people with something that lasts.
And what struck me most? This habit, refined over decades on stage, isn’t just for concerts. It’s something we can all use, whether you’re leading a meeting, giving a talk, launching a product, or just trying to get through to people in a meaningful way.
In this episode, we explore:
Whether you’re leading a room, launching an idea, or giving a talk that matters, this conversation is a guide to crafting moments that last long after the lights go down.
If you’ve ever wanted to communicate in a way that lands, this one’s for you.
Listen to the full episode with Gary Barlow: https://pod.fo/e/17fc0b
Here is more information on the studies referenced:
When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End (Daniel Kahneman, Barbara Fredrickson, Charles Schreiber, Donald Redelmeier 1993)
Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions (Barbara Fredrickson 1998)
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