The 4 Questions That Will Change Your Perspective on Life

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1:42Jake Humphrey: Welcome to High Performance. This is one of our regular episodes where we reflect on the rich array of guests who've joined us over the last five years and we pick out of that some of the lessons that we've learned along the way. Now I get to take the reins today because I was recently reading a book that featured an interview with the existential psychologist Titania Schnell, who suggested that to live a high-performance life, it needs to be coherent. Does your life add up? Significant. Do you feel that you matter and make a difference? Directed. That you have a purpose and that you belong. That you're part of something bigger.

2:20Jake Humphrey: And after I read that, this is how life tends to work. I listened to an interview that Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, said, where he described that he wanted his guys to feel valued, respected, important and relevant. So these are the four questions I think we could all do with asking ourselves. Brilliant. I love that, Damien. Well, if we share some clips then, Jake, I'd be interested in getting your response to them. Yeah, and I think, you know, just for clarity for people listening, this is your work. I've just been told to sit down and listen, so I don't know what we're going to do.

2:53what we're going to talk about. But I think my entire role on high performance for the last five years has been the not-so-clever one. So I'm more than happy just to play the fool on this occasion and ask the questions that people at home might be thinking.

3:06Jake Humphrey: Well, you definitely do yourself a disservice, Jake. But let's start with the first one of, does your life add up? Is it coherent? And I thought, go and listen to one of my favourite guests that we've had on, the brilliant Dr. Pippa Grange. what does extreme elite performance require risk you have to be vulnerable enough to put yourself out there and every time there is a culture of conformity for me it's impoverishing it really strips away people's ability to take that risk to stand up you know you would have read in the book the Richmond Tigers, AFL, their Triple H exercise, which actually came from Atlanta Falcons NFL, which was being able to stand up and say, to tell a story of a hero, hardship and highlight in their own life.

3:59And for all these guys had endured and tolerated and the whole world looks at them as brave doing that where it was personally vulnerable was probably the biggest breakthrough piece that they could have that allowed them to go into a different zone where they dropped fear you know and they raised intimacy and things like that that's like taking a risk that's non-conforming

4:24Jake Humphrey: and it's so powerful so people there talks about an exercise that is commonly used in lots of high performing teams Jake the hero the highlight of the hardship that helps people understand the coherent story of their teammate stood in front of them and how they've got there so if you were to answer the three H's who are your hero what was your highlight and what's the hardship you've overcome oh that's a great question um my first hero um I say first because I think like life changes as you go like you know I would put Harriet as one of my heroes I'd put you as one of my heroes i'd put son-in-law i run whisper with as one of my heroes but the first person i looked at as a hero was my grandpa because he was a police officer and he was always well turned out it's really weird he i know this sounds the most random thing in the world he taught me to blow my nose right so i remember i remember distinctly sitting on his knee and he held a tissue and was like now blow uh it's a simple thing but you don't know how to blow your nose when you're three years old and he always had his shoes really well polished and he wanted to be a police officer and then I then wanted to be a police officer and actually that leads on to a hardship and it's not the greatest hardship you know losing my grandma as you know to suicide it was very hard being bullied and changing schools was hard there was a few other tricky things along the way but I dreamed of being a police officer and when I was seven I had a colour blindness test at school and I did the colour blindness test they said to me you're colour blind I was like oh okay and these are all the jobs you can't do and police officer was on the list.

5:59And I went home and cried to my mum. I then tried to apply to be a special police officer when I was 18, thinking that maybe they wouldn't test my colour blindness and they did and I failed again. So that was definitely a hardship relating to my grandpa. And what's the final one? Highlight. Highlight. Oh, man, too many to mention. My highlight was probably hosting the 2012 London Olympics for the BBC. Because? just because it felt like i was part of a national moment like it felt like also um when you've come through the ranks at the bbc and you've been on kids telly and you finally get the opportunity to be a sports presenter there's validation the jobs that you get given i remember once sitting with a do you remember a guy called ray stubs who was a yeah sports i remember sitting with ray stubs at the um sports personality of the year in 2006 and i said to him have you ever hosted this he goes no you know, only the A-list top talent get to host sports personality.

6:55And two years later, they asked me to host it. And again, with 2012, it was like a big decision. Who would they put at the front of the BBC's coverage of that Olympics? And I was lucky enough to be one of the hosts. So I think it gave sort of validation, really, to that kid that, you know, left home at 18 to try and become a TV presenter in London.

7:13Jake Humphrey: What a brilliant story. And actually, let's go a bit further into the conversation with Pippa. Because that first example of your grandpa being your hero, is something that Pippa actually references. So the Triple H is really just an anchor for the storytelling of, you know, the hero in your life, the hardship and the highlight. And almost everybody tells a personal story that would be about a grandma or a person who's meant everything to them or a moment where they felt really small and overcame. And it's humbling. It really introduces humility and the bond that comes out of doing that, like really seeing the person behind the shirt or the human being behind the role or the title, is so rich.

8:04Jake Humphrey: So understanding the coherence of how your life adds up to that moment of hosting the 2012 Olympics and the role of your grandpa and that overcoming some of those hardships is significant. And that leads us to the second element, which is understanding how you matter and how you make a difference. Now, there was a really powerful conversation that we had with H. Now, I found it particularly resonant because he grew up in the area of Manchester where I did. But when he spoke to us, he spoke to us about something that was really significant in his own life. You wrote a song called My G, right? And you said, um...

8:45You said, people laugh, but we're too strong for it to ever hurt. they might try and bring you down but it will never work yeah what are the biggest things that you've learned from her this might sound stupid how to like how to breathe how to like just realize everything's fine do you get what i mean like this girl i wish i could get into her head and just see what she's thinking about for the day because it's it's so interesting and she just like i don't know she just it's just a warm feeling she makes everyone feel warm she really is the star of the show it's funny like i'll go make platinum records and perform in front of 80 000 people but when i get home i'm not the superstar she is i'm like yeah man i don't know she's she literally is an inspiration i'm not even sitting there like trying to get soppy or anything like that but like on a genuine one she's just like some inspiring little person let's again relate this to you jake in

9:40Jake Humphrey: terms of the significance like what are the moments where you realize that who you are really matters i'm not sure i have realized that really how do you mean well in terms of who is it where your significance really plays the biggest part you know oh right okay well having having kids i mean there's a very strange moment when your children are born that you stop and you go oh my goodness that's how much my parents loved me and you think back to all those times that you were critical of them or dismissive of them or hard on them or made their lives difficult and I guess I'm still in that lovely place where Flo's 11 and Seb's 9 so I'm I remain the sun the moon and the stars to my kids and you just start to see it not being the case with Florence now in fact it's funny we're talking about it now because I've stayed overnight in London and yesterday when I left I went to give her a kiss and for the first time ever her eyes start flicking left and right like who's seeing my dad give me a kiss goodbye and that is a like a tiny moment of heartbreak because it's not that moment that's heartbreaking but it's it's the vision into the future that soon it's going to be hard to hold like holding a hand will be hard and giving her a hug will be hard because other people will become more important and that by the way is exactly what should happen and the last thing i want is for my kids to be in their 40s still living at home thinking that the sun shines out of their dad's behind so you need to let them go but i feel like yeah at the moment that's the that's where i feel really like validated as a person i guess yeah but there's also something there about not just putting your validation in the kid's affection into it there's something wider than that in what respect well in terms of we need to feel that the work we do matters you know we've spoke about coherence of where it fits within our life when do you have moments when you realise that what you do, not just who you are, carries a weight of significance?

11:37I think that's probably the reason why I try and do so much charity stuff. So my dad was a charity worker, so I grew up in a house where it was expected that you would take care of people in a less fortunate position than you, where my dad could have earned more money, been more successful, had more lovely things in his life if he'd have left the charity sector to go and work in the private sector. and my sister now works for the NHS. My brother spent a long time as a teacher. I've created the High Performance Foundation, worked with lots of charities. I think this sense of realising there's more than you on this earth and you can leave something bigger is something that runs through my family and I think probably is one of the reasons why stopping being a football presenter and focusing basically full-time on high performance was an easier decision for me because doing this with you is the first time in my whole career that I feel like I'm of value.

12:30I think until now I was just talking about other people's achievements and sometimes in not a very helpful way. Should that manager be sacked? Should that player be dropped? Let's focus in minute detail on that refereeing decision with more information than that referee can ever have. Why is that if one driver made that mistake at 200 miles an hour? Why is that Olympian not delivered after four years of hard work? That was my life, like asking those questions on the telly. Who's that helping? Whereas this, I do feel is of value.

12:57Jake Humphrey: So have you had a moment with the Community Sport Foundation or the Young Lives vs. Cancer where you've realised the significance of your impact? Yeah, it would be the work with Young Lives vs. Cancer who Harriet and I worked with for many years, helping to raise money for them. And it was when we went to what they call a home from home. So it's a house, effectively, right next to a children's cancer centre where the parents and the child who's having treatment and the brothers and sisters can live right next to the hospital so they can still live the life that they're used to. So mum and dad can still get them up in the morning, make them some breakfast, they can go off and have their treatment and it means the parents and the siblings are all nearby and if you've had a long day of treatment, you can go back there and it can feel less like a hospital, more like a home.

13:43I think it was that and the reason why that resonated, I think, with me so much is because it's so easy for us to lose sight of the fact that that could be any of us at any given moment. I don't know whether you agree but I think sometimes that's the most important part of these kinds of reflections is this, it puts perspective on the life that we have in our hands at the moment. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's really powerful.

14:06Jake Humphrey: Thank you for sharing it. But these four questions that we need to ask ourselves, we've first of all looked at does your life add up? Then do you realise that you matter and can make a difference? The next one is around is it directed? Do you have a sense of purpose? Now, before I ask you that question, I think it's worth us listening to the England rugby league head coach, Sean Wayne, who found his own sense of purpose in pretty bleak circumstances. My dad beat me to a pulp two or three times a week. And I never learned. But what that did, I remember going to bed, wanting to die when I'm eight, nine, ten.

14:46And I thought, if ever I have kids, they're never going to feel this way. So it made me a better dad. You know, so when Wigan got rid of me, I thought to myself, if ever I coach, I'm never going to have a player feeling this way. I'm going to tell him everything so he knows what's coming. So I think I've learned, you know, I've learned how to be a better dad. So I've learned through, you know, I had a coach at Wigan who bullied me, tried to bully me. And I wouldn't back down from anybody, but he tried it. And I remember thinking, I will never, ever have a player feeling the same way as you're making me feel now.

15:23Jake Humphrey: That interview with Sean Wayne was incredibly powerful, but recognising his purpose there came from fairly bleak circumstances. Have you recognised your own purpose? I don't think so, no. I still feel like I'm just kind of like stumbling through, if that makes sense, and seeing what comes up. I mean, I don't believe in a huge amount of planning. I mean, one thing I do resonate with when I hear that from Sean Wayne is this idea of understanding that what is hard for you isn't necessarily bad for you. You know, that was very difficult for him, what happened to him with his dad and that sort of behaviour can never be condoned.

16:00But at the same time, those hard things that we experience at a young age often give us the resilience or put life into a perspective that is valuable later on in life. But I don't feel that I have really found my purpose because I think that, I guess I wear like multiple hats. You know, I love the idea of infinite purpose from Susie Ma, that life isn't about setting specific goals. It's about being a little bit better every day. So maybe I could answer it with that. Like, I guess my purpose is just, is to not compare myself to other people, right? But to compare myself to who I was yesterday.

16:34So if I can just be a step ahead today of where I was yesterday, and tomorrow I'll be a step ahead of where I am today, I think that's probably my purpose. and then in terms of trying to do things that are good and are valuable for other people i think maybe that comes down less to your purpose more to your morals yeah yeah your morals your

16:57Jake Humphrey: values so what would you say if you were to answer that then what are what are the three values that you hold true to empathy over opinion yeah making people realize the potential that they've got at their fingertips. Showing people that being curious and having a mind of exploration probably beats just about everything else. Brilliant. Which then allows you to make decisions about what you're going to do next and whether you're going to take it on, which gives us that sense of purpose and clarity. So that brings us to the fourth of what I suggest, the questions we can all be asking ourselves, which is, do you have a sense of belonging, feeling that you're part of something bigger so when I first read about this from the existential psychologist to Tanya Schnell the fourth one about feeling a sense of belonging being part of something bigger reminded me of this conversation that we had on the first time round with Dr.

17:55Brongan Chatterjee and I tell you one of my patients from a few years ago I remember so well and I think the story might resonate with your audience 35 year old chap came in to see me felt little bit indifferent about life, feeling pretty low. And I was asking him about his life and from the outside, like this guy was crushing it. Good job, running his own business, right? Making good money, driving a sports car, right? He's got all those external metrics of success. And maybe people are listening right now going, yeah, that's what I want. But here's the thing. I asked him, because I was trying to figure out what's going on here.

18:34Why is he feeling so low? Why does he struggle to get out bed some mornings. I said, okay, how often do you see your friends? And he said, well, you know, I'm sort of, I kind of see what they're up to on social media. I see them on Facebook and Instagram. I know what they're doing. And I said, how often do you actually see them in real life? He goes, I'm just too busy. I don't have time. And so I checked other things out, but the prescription I gave to him I said okay listen for the next six weeks I want you to see your friends in person once a week now he was lucky he lived in the town where he grew up so his friends actually live nearby he just never saw them I sent him away he comes back six weeks later he's like a different person he bounces into the room and I said how are you feeling he goes I thought, Shashi, I feel great.

19:27I said, what happened? He goes, well, we started off on a Sunday morning. We'd go to the local cafe and catch a beer for a latte. And then after a few weeks, that led to us restarting playing five-a-sides once a week. And essentially, you know, I'm not exaggerating one iota here. He didn't have a, you know, a serotonin deficiency, right? He had a friendship and relationship deficiency in his life, right? And he actually had the relationships. He was just too busy chasing success to actually nourish them. What if the real question isn't where you're going, but the adventures you experience along the way?

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22:49powerful stuff so yeah who do you belong to that norwiches you well i would definitely say harriet my wife but i would also say for a long time i was the bloke that rongan shatterjee was talking about there because you know i left norwich to go make it in television and then i was on kids telly and i had to put my everything into being on kids tv and then i got an opportunity to host formula one and I had to basically, not in a ruthless way, but I had to not see the people I was on kids TV with anymore because they were busy working on kids TV and I had to go and travel the world doing Formula One and I couldn't afford to mess that job up because I was given a one-year contract and told by my boss at the time, people will make their minds up about you within 30 seconds and if their minds are made up in a bad way, that could be it for you.

23:28This was my one opportunity. And that was a lonely job because I felt the weight of responsibility. So while everyone else was out drinking and partying around the world with F1, I was fully focused on getting that job right. And then I eventually got an opportunity to go to BT Sport. And again, it was a big risk. And my boss in that instance said to me a week before, he said, how do you feel about the fact that BT have gambled the best part of a billion quid on this and you're the one that's responsible for making it successful or not? So again, the responsibility meant I didn't really enjoy that and I didn't really socialise much.

24:03I just focused on trying to be the best football presenter that I could be. and then when I stop doing that and I come and try to make high performance as great as it can be, I don't see the guys I used to work with on football. So not long ago, I was in exactly the position that that person was in and I definitely, I wasn't lonely because I'm busy and I've got lots going on. But if you said to me, who will you ring if you've got an issue? I probably would have said nobody, right? Which is an embarrassing thing to admit as a guy in your 40s and not a great place to be. but I think it wasn't just the constant changing of jobs and this for whatever reason drive and desire to be successful that had caused all of that I think I'd also slipped into a place where my conversations with people particularly other blokes I were just not very fulfilling and it's not from their responsibility that's my responsibility so I just really do struggle with small how are you what you went up to and where are you going on a holiday what like I have this voice in my head going i don't give a shit where this person's gone on holiday and they don't give a shit what i'm going on holiday and how our kids are and how their kids are and and what had happened was i'd allowed myself to not to stop having real conversations basically because i was busy doing other things so then i had to make a conscious effort to go right the first thing i need to do is live like the kind of person i talk about we should be on high performance right which is lean into people which is understand people a bit more and it actually came from me trying to have proper conversations so when i'm seeing my mates no longer going how's life how are the kids i would say things like are you i know you run your own business i know it's hard out there how are you actually getting on or friends who just had a kid like i remember when our kid was born and it was properly affecting and it made you quite lonely what's the biggest struggle you've got at the moment those kinds of questions or like um what's keeping you up at night at the moment is one that i found really opened people up and what i liked about that was as soon as you asked those kinds of actual valuable questions they would then start asking you really valuable questions that was that was really good and it helped a bit but then after a bit of nagging from harry i also had to go one step further and actually start trying to socialize for people a bit more yeah so she convinced me to create like a group of a few dads that my kids schooled and we go out and have curry once a month you know i had a sauna put in my garden at the start of the year i've asked my brother to come over every monday morning and me and him sit and just sit in the sauna together for 20 minutes because i think you drift away from your siblings right which is heartbreaking as a parent of two kids so it's just trying to lean into people a little bit more and accepting that in my work life it is always going to be that sort of transient thing yeah because i think that's probably like a lot of people's work lives we no longer have a job for life anymore so i think we mustn't be looking towards our work life necessarily for all of those connections we need to try and find them in the life that we have at home and then of course you have a wife or a husband or a partner but i think also there's there's something that that relationship can't give you and maybe shouldn't give you that you should be getting elsewhere

27:08Jake Humphrey: so let me ask you then what are the benefits thank you for sharing that because i like you say i I think it's really brave. And I don't think, as men, we often open up to it. Very rarely. That idea of making friends can be hard. And actually, I used to come, you might have sensed this, I used to come home from like a night out, a few drinks with some mates, and Harriet would be like, what do you talk about? And I'm like, just not much really. She'd come home and tell me all these amazing, in-depth things they'd discuss. And so I remember thinking, well, we need to talk a bit more. Like, this kind of a conversation we're having is what I want blokes listening to this podcast to have.

27:40Jake Humphrey: but I think what I want to explore with you there is what have you seen in the benefits of doing that of leaning into people well mate an empathy and understanding that other people are struggling you know how you always have a view that your life is a struggle and everyone else's is easy once you start saying what's keeping you up at night you very quickly realize that there is a lot going on and also I think we're guilty of assuming someone's behavior tells them what they think about us it's absolute nonsense someone's behavior tells us what they think about their life right so what you mean by that so if someone's quiet or a bit off with you or a bit distant you assume oh they don't like me very much that's not true what you assume realize if you ask them how they are is that they've got so many freaking things spinning around in their head they almost haven't got any spare capacity to connect with you properly but if you connect with them then that's great i think the the final thing which has been the biggest realization is that i used to think that everyone else had loads of mates and a great like fulfilling social life until you start going out and having proper conversations with your mates who then start going i've not had a conversation like this for years with anyone yeah and you're like neither have i and then your other mate goes i haven't spoken like this ever with anyone including my parents and you start having these great connections and life is so much more exciting interesting and fulfilling if you kind of make a decision that whenever you're with someone you just try to connect even if it's for a few seconds on a level a little bit beyond the basic that standard relationship if you just try and go a tiny little bit deeper yeah and actually sometimes it's not even the conversations that you have it's almost just like when you leave just like putting your hand on them and go listen have a brilliant weekend just me holding your arm like that for just 10 seconds it's like oh yeah I felt that you know what I mean yeah yeah moment of connection moment of connection you know they say you have to cuddle after 60 seconds when you cuddle your kids in the morning it starts to release endorphins for you and for them so your hugs should be long I'm not saying hug every friend of yours for 60 seconds every day because you'd get nothing done and people might think it's slightly strange but try and have that connection that releases those endorphins and makes you feel slightly less lonely in a world where it can actually feel like you're very busy but very lonely that's brilliant and it goes back then to the four questions that we encourage you to maybe think about asking yourself first of all think about who you connect with who you belong to second one is think about the significance where where are those moments that truly matter the third is something around your purpose have you identified what it is that you do that makes a difference and then finally think about the coherence of making sure that your life adds up thanks for listening to us if you've got any questions that you want us to answer you've got any thoughts you want to share with us and reflect on feel free to get in touch with us via any of the platforms that are available and we'll look forward to catching up with you again next time

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