What advice would you give your younger self?

0:03Hey everyone, it's Jake and Damien here with another delve into the world of high performance. And today, we're going to look closely at a question that I think we've probably asked. Is it every single guest that's joined us on High Performance, do you think? Easily over 90%, Jake. Okay, so how many episodes have we done today? 185. Ooh, okay. So close to 200 episodes of High Performance. And almost every time we've asked this question to the people who've joined us. And, you know, let's remember these are leaders. These are entrepreneurs. These are investors. These are artists. These are people who've pushed themselves to the absolute limit.

0:36So we think that their take on this question is fascinating. And the question is... What advice would you give to your younger self? So why is this an important question? I mean, why did we ask it to the very first guest on the podcast and we still ask it today? Well, one of our favourite quotes is from a Danish philosopher called Soren Kierkard that famously once said that life has to be lived forwards, but only makes sense looking back. So for so many of our guests, the idea of getting them to retrospectively view their life the journey that they've been on and the lessons and the advice they give to equip themselves for that journey is really interesting it's a really useful coaching technique as well Jake that sometimes the idea of we tend to speak to our younger selves with care and compassion and we tend to be patient with our younger selves so it brings out a very coaching style of response that uh that is really useful and interesting to listen to.

1:33I also like it because I think the answer isn't actually an answer from their younger self. It can't be. It's an answer from the person in front of us today. So if we, you know, if we went back to the 12 year old guest and said, what advice do you think is going to be something that you look back on when you're older, they wouldn't be able to give us the answer because you can only answer this question based on all the incredible things and sometimes the hard things that you've witnessed and I think it's just a reminder that like life is a constant process of growth and learning and understanding and failing and trying a different route and I think that's the really sort of important reminder for people is that if you're listening to this and you're thinking what you know should I even listen to high performance I'm not a high performer I don't sort of deserve to live and think and operate in the way that these guests do well our answer is you absolutely we do deserve that and you know we're all just doing our best and high performance is only that it's doing your best it's being happy it's talking well to yourself it's talking nicely of other people i think that's quite an important thing to remember here yeah i mean there's a really interesting technique on this um where it's been proven that if you talk to yourself like you're talking to you as a younger child you tend to demonstrate more compassion more empathy more understanding and it helps you almost get through tough moments as well I remember that the research is out there but it was Dr.

2:58Wrong and Chatterjee shared it with us about when you go out for a run for example and the run might get hard and you get out of breath that inner self-talk of of as if you're speaking to a toddler or a child is actually really helpful of getting through those tough moments and so you can get your momentum back again so there's lots of research on this of why asking this question and reflecting on the answer that you would give to that younger self is actually really valuable. Should we do it then? Should we listen to a few? Yeah, I mean, there's been some fascinating answers, haven't there? I mean, if we go back to the very first episode of this and the brilliant Rio Ferdinand when we went to meet him at his restaurant in Manchester, he's a guy that's lived an incredible life, but also a life of some real moments of struggle.

3:45You know, he spoke about losing his wife and his mum in that period just before we went to meet him. So the advice he offered us was invaluable. Here it is. This is Rio Ferdinand, episode one of High Performance. What advice would you give to a young Rio just starting out? I enjoyed a moment more at a time, but then I always say, well, that would have affected me winning more then, so why would I want to do that? Because it was a mad game in your head. There's a winner's mentality coming through again. Now, I think this is really interesting, OK, because obviously in my other job as a sports presenter, I spend my time with people who are right at the centre of the sporting world.

4:25So let me give you my thoughts on this. Do you mind? Go on. Okay, so we're recording this on a Friday. On Tuesday, I was at the Etihad, where Erling Haaland scored five goals in the Champions League. And he came out and he joined us afterwards. And we were standing pitch side, talking to him. You don't get along with these players in a moment like that. I think we were told three minutes only, so it was four or five questions. But in that time, I got, I think, a real insight into the genius of that guy because he's loving it. He's totally relaxed. He finds it easy. You know, sometimes people like to make it sound and seem more complicated than it is.

4:59So we said to him, like, how do you do this? And his answer was, well, it just sort of happens. I found myself in the right place and somehow the ball ends up in the back of the net because he's in flow. He's really, really, at the moment, in flow. Now, it may be very different if he goes 20 games without a goal because then he starts to try. then he starts to put effort into it but at the moment it's fluid it's fluent it's flow it's easy it's natural it's instinctive it's intuitive and he had a smile on his face and the next day he put up a picture on his social media of him lying in bed asleep with the match ball from scoring the hat trick so he is I think a rare exception to this rule that he's enjoying it and I think very very few people at the elite level do and I think even like he's young and he's only really best on and seen in the last two or three years he's still in that place where he's really enjoying it sustaining that is a whole other challenge and I think the time will come where it's not so easy now the reason why I want to mention him and he's in a state of flow and he's enjoying it is I think he is rare I think most people have to fight and push and challenge themselves and really analyze their situation to get to the very top and I think that finding time for enjoyment takes you away from that so I think that 99 % actually of sports people at the very top don't enjoy it like Rio Ferdinand said because I think you have a choice you either can choose to be a high achieving person and really enjoy it which takes you away from the thing you've been doing that got you to where you were yeah that is it I think that then you get very few people I would put Max Verstappen in that mold I put you know Erling Haaland in that mold maybe you know Lionel Messi would be in that mode Roger Federer you know it's a natural instinctive ability that gets them where they are someone like Cristiano Ronaldo he's not a flow footballer he's a graft footballer he's an effort footballer he's had to force himself to be that good equally incredible equally applaudable maybe even more so but I think for most people enjoyment and success are separate which is a shame and a lot of people won't want to hear that but I do feel that having heard it many many many times it's only at the end when they go oh wish I'd enjoyed it but then I'm like well if you had enjoyed it would you have still done what you did to get it you know well that's I mean you used an interesting phrase there high achievement and I think that leads us into a really interesting area of high achievement versus high performance yeah what would you see is the difference of that I think well I think they're totally different I think that society makes us think that high achievement is high performance because we're judged on certainly in this country and in the countries where this podcast is popular we're judged on the metrics of a capitalist western culture so high performance is a nice car a big promotion kids privately educated private health care nice holidays in the maldives or whatever the truth is that high performance is only high happiness it can't be anything else because you can have all those things and not be happy and many many people tell us that that is the case because they slip into the trap of thinking they're going to be happy when they achieve those things and that as we know you know second mountain syndrome it's always there so high performance is it's a trick and a lie to think that high performance is high achievement and high success yeah see because what you're describing there i love that distinction because if you think of it as a venn diagram of high performance and high achievement there's that overlap in the middle where those rare beasts that you say like harland from this week seems to be occupying of they're going after incredible achievements but they're remembering the process of how they're getting there and i think that's why we have to remain this podcast and all the things that we're creating has to remain the antithesis of this modern toxic dangerous hustle culture mindset yeah where we're just telling people to be successful or don't be happy like we can't and i think people mistake our podcast because some of the criticism we get is i'm not listening to another of those hey guys enjoy the moment and be successful and it'll be worth it podcasts we're not that you know we are literally asking incredible people how they've done it it's very different and i think quite often we're the ones saying yeah but that's unhealthy but that's not going to take you to a place of happiness that's not going to give you serenity at the end you know that's we have to say those things because there are too many people out there lying to their audience and saying get a big car you'll be happy yeah yeah you know be successful have a six-pack go on holiday those are the things you should aspire to why should you aspire to those things how do you know they're going to make you happy yeah i think it's really powerful and it's a good distinction i spoke to an ultra marathon runner this week who said uh he was apologetic he said i don't listen to your podcast and but i'm aware of it and i said okay what and his reason was he said when i'm running he said i don't need somebody telling me i need to strive for more i need to get better he said because i'm already at that struggle point and my point saying was well that's not what the podcast is about you haven't listened to it because we're not advocating those points that you've just said of the getting to the next destination is only when you can be happy it's in the moment and i think rio's point almost kick-started a really interesting conversation that 200 episodes in we're still trying to work it out and that actually takes us nicely onto another clip i should listen to so you're about to hear from lucy easthope who is one of the global leaders in disaster recovery so she's one of the first people on the ground when a big natural or man-made disaster happens she shared with us some amazing lessons and learnings on the podcast but this is what she said her advice would be to her younger self what advice would you give to a young lucy just starting out learn to listen learn to wait learn to be asked you know 20 something lucy was probably much more desperate to impart some of this um learning to wait and exactly what we talked about it won't always be easy to be you but it'd be worth it well i mean what brilliant advice that is from lucy that i think sometimes we can be in too much of a rush i think we want to get to where we want to get to because again society tells us yeah be in a rush get there quick yeah we celebrate sort of like young prodigies or these people that have got rich quick and i think what loose is telling us is the benefit of patience is key there's some really interesting research on this jake from there's a lady at the university of london a psychologist called philip a lally that's done some really good research i like quoting to people about patience because There's this myth that it takes you 30 days to learn a habit and then it becomes ingrained.

11:43And the reality, what Philip and Lally and her team have discovered is, that's a nonsense. It might take you 10 days, but it might take you 100 days. It all depends on you. And I think that's an important point because you don't get caught up in the trap of comparing yourself to anybody else. It'll be subjective and it'll be your own journey. So if you're clear what you want to do, like Lucy's describing there learning to listen learning to want to help others we need to be patient and learn our craft the mastery of learning our craft is where real high performance lies you're totally right you know I would love to conversation I saw with Kobe Bryant the late Kobe Bryant where he said that he knew how to improve as a basketball player this is when he was 11 years old right and he said that I knew it wouldn't take me a week or two weeks to get as good as the people who were the best in my age group at that time so he said I dedicated six months to being good at shooting.

12:37Six months at 11 years old, by the way. Six months to being good at shooting. He said, when I felt I'd mastered shooting, I dedicated six months to being the best I could at creating the space to get the shot away. So he's breaking it down. You know, not even a teenager. He's breaking these things down. After two years, he was the best player in the league. Now, it's very easy at 11, we have kids, to think, oh, if I'm not better than them next week, I'm going to be disheartened. And that really is the strong message for you listening to this today. great things take time if it doesn't take time then it isn't great enough let it take time don't be rushed by other people don't compare yourself to what else is happening in the world don't let the perfection on social media make you feel that you're not getting there i love the phrase you are exactly where you're meant to be and the reason why i love it isn't because it's necessarily right because people go yeah but if i'm struggling at the moment or life's crap or i'm unemployed or you know i can't make ends meet what do you mean i'm i'm exactly where i'm supposed to be the reason why I love that quote is because you can't be anywhere else be where your feet are Grace Beverly said to us you can only be in that place so don't worry about where you should be where you could be where other people are worry only about what you're doing you don't even worry about where you're going like worry about what you're doing because what you're doing will determine all of those other things where you're going how long it takes to get there when you get there and you'll get there when your effort and your consistency and your desire allows you to yeah it's interesting i was reading a book this week uh about the power of awe like awe and one of the things that was in it was about control where your thoughts go so there's some research from a guy a psychologist called dr singer who spoke about how your brain goes in three directions it can either go into the past and reflect on what's gone or your brain can go into the future and work out where it needs to be or it can be in the present.

14:29But what he was saying is, if you're going to allow the future thoughts to go, make it constructive and make it positive so you know there's a sense of direction to it, but don't spend too long there because you need to come back to where your feet are in the moment to make sure that they're aligned and they're pointing in the right direction. Be where your feet are. Right, let's wrap this up by hearing from incredible podcaster Stephen Bartlett, who joined us on the High Performance podcast. This is the advice he would give to his younger self. So what advice would you give a teenage Stephen just starting out?

15:03You were right when you thought that you could, regardless of grades and regardless of not having the silver spoon or anything, you were right in that. Yeah, and that actually didn't matter. What mattered more wasn't your material circumstances, it was the circumstances of your mind. and I think that's almost the perfect way to wrap this episode up because it's about the power of self-belief how many times have we said it if you think you can you might if you think you can't you definitely won't yeah definitely and Stephen's a great example of it I mean his own podcast is phenomenal and you know the work that he's doing is really groundbreaking but that comes from his origins of having that sense of belief and that confidence of backing himself I think we can all do with a bit more of that absolutely uh thank you so much for listening for sharing to being part of the high performance journey it's hugely appreciated remember there's one way that you can help us grow this podcast and that's by subscribing the more we grow the subscribers the bigger the podcast becomes the bigger it becomes the greater the names we can attract and the greater the names that we can attract the more impact we can have on your life so please talk about it share it subscribe and we'll see you soon

16:17Thank you.