Begin Again with Davina McCall - Jake Humphrey on Grief, The Trauma Of Childhood Bullying & His Mission To Save Young Men

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Do the moments that feel like they’re breaking you actually shape who you’re meant to become? In this episode of Begin Again, Davina McCall sits down with broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur Jake Humphrey for an honest conversation about failure, bullying, masculinity, fatherhood and learning to define success differently. Jake opens up about the loneliness of being bullied at school, failing his A-levels and being told by the BBC, “we don’t employ people like you”, experiences that ultimately helped shape his extraordinary broadcasting career. He also reflects on the pressures facing men today, why he believes young men are being led towards dark corners of the internet, and how empathy, vulnerability and honest conversations can offer a different vision of masculinity. From the powerful influence of his father to becoming a dad himself, Jake shares what parenting has taught him about being present, letting children fail, prioritising what really matters and creating a safe space for them to talk. This is a hopeful conversation about resilience, parenting, masculinity, success and discovering that most of life’s hardest moments lead us towards something extraordinary. 🌟Like, comment and subscribe for more honest conversations about purpose, resilience, love, loss and beginning again. Follow us here: 📸www.instagram.com/beginagain  🎥https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  ✨Sign up for the Begin Again newsletter for behind-the-scenes access, recommendations and much more: https://linkly.link/2g2xm  Follow Jake Humphrey here: https://www.instagram.com/jakehumphrey/  Buy Jake's new book 'Game Plan' at https://dk.com/products/9780241734445-game-plan?_pos=2&_psq=gamepl&_psid=5929c8573&_ss=e/ We'd love you to share your Get Busy Living stories with us at https://getbusyliving.beginagainshow.com/ (00:00) Intro (01:10) Why Service Matters (07:23) Learning From Older Generations (09:59) How Bullying Shaped Him (17:11) Garnier Ad (19:04) Monzo GBL Ad (20:33) From Kids’ TV to Sport (24:27) His Grandmother’s Suicide (27:07) Failing His O-Levels (31:10) His Take on the Manosphere (39:51) Monzo 90 Days Ad (41:00) British Heart Foundation Ad (45:13) The Joy of Being a Dad (46:54) What Really Matters in Life (54:19) A Letter From His Daughter (58:02) Embracing Embarrassment Sponsored by: Garnier Nutrisse: UK's NO1 hair dye, chosen by 2 million women. Davina is shade 5 Mocha Brown. Find yours: www.garnier.co.uk/our-brands/hair-colour/nutrisse-creme  Monzo: Results from the 2024 Lost Pensions Survey by the Pensions Policy Institute. The value of your pension could go up or down and you could get back less than you put in. You need a free Monzo current account to open a Monzo pension. Download Monzo. Monzo Current Accounts are for 18-70 years old only and UK residents. Ts&Cs Apply. Join the 'Say Yes Club' and hear more about our events here - https://events.beginagainshow.com/  British Heart Foundation: To help fund lifesaving research, visit https://bhf.org.uk/keepusbeating to donate now and keep us beating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Audio ads that connect. Display ads that stand out. Run them together on Spotify and unlock incremental reach for your campaign. How did I dismiss that moment so much? Oh, that's the hardest part. Tell everybody what happened. I never thought a kid from a little village in Norfolk

would be traveling the world working in Formula One. Why? I was a late developer, DeVina. I'd failed my exams at school. I was being bullied and I was fired from McDonald's. But if you keep trying, almost everything that you need is already within you. Oh my God, Jake!

In the end, you're presenting the Premier League, the Champions League. You've got like 300 staff. You've got two kids, a happy marriage. But I felt like none of it mattered. I love my wife, my kids, but I felt like I was getting everything wrong. On the outside, you would have looked at my life and thought, God, that is amazing. But I was lost in this little world. I felt so out of kilter.

We've actually got something for you. I'll give you that. I'm going to ask you to read it out to this place. Oh, wow. Oh, my name. Would you read it to us? Daddy Jake Humphrey

I want to start by saying I'm going to intro you I think as a brilliant example of a great man Oh wow And I'd quite like to deep dive into Your upbringing Because your parents had such an amazing impact

On who you are as a person Your dad in particular I think Tell me a bit about your dad Yeah Oh I mean my dad is on every level my hero. I felt really sad actually because last year Eddie Jordan passed away

who I worked with him for a little while. Yeah, it was like a father figure. It was like a father figure to me. And, you know, because Eddie was well known, obviously there's a lot of media around him and I was asked, on the day that I got the news he died, actually, I got asked to go and do an interview on Radio 5 Live.

And it was only a throwaway comment, but my mum said to me, it hurt a bit. She said to me a couple days later, she goes, oh, dad was wondering if you'd even say such nice things about him. And I think he'd heard me talking about Eddie and thought, I wonder if I've had that impact. So can I just be absolutely clear?

My dad absolutely has had that impact on me. Can I just say that's really sweet. I know. But I think that we do worry, don't we about the impact we have on our kids? And we kind of... Yeah. I can imagine my dad, like, son of a farmer from Whiz Beach and the Fens in the UK, who, you know, grafted all his life with a real care for other people

and was a charity worker his whole life. I can imagine that he would look at the UK. look at what I shared with EJ, traveling the world, working in Formula One, experiencing things that I never thought a kid from a little village in Norfolk would ever experience. And then it's natural for him to go, I wonder where my impact lies here.

And so I'm so pleased you've asked me about my dad because I wanted to realize that the impact he's had on me is more than he will ever know. And I like that. You know, he can think that he's had an impact. He doesn't really realize. And he deserves so much, praise for what he did because he was the son of a farmer.

But my dad had a calling to do something different. So when he was a teen, 18, 19, he left Whiz Beach to work on the kibbutz, right, in Israel. And left home to go and pursue that dream. And then my granddad, his dad, was going to a wedding. So he went and bought a morning suit. And he went to show his brother, they were farmers, they were brother farmers. And there was a potato picker there. And his brother had taken the guard off the potato picker.

And as my granddad said, look at the top hat and tails I've bought for this wedding. The potato picker caught the back of the tails of his jacket and pulled him into the machine. This is in the 1960s. And if you know how a potato picker works, your bases snapped him in half. Oh, God.

I know. So, you know, thank God he wasn't killed, but his back was broken. Oh, my God. And he ended up in a wheelchair for life. Now, in those days, you were given like a 10 years to live if you were paraplegic. So obviously the first thing my dad did was come home,

lived with his mum and dad again, helped his dad, served. And I think we can talk a bit about the power of service. We live so much within ourselves and how do we feel and how am I doing? Like as soon as you stop looking inside and look outside. The power of service. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.

Well, if people are listening to this with anxiety or a lack of self-worth or a question mark about their place in society, feeling like they're not enough, feeling like a let down, go and do something, go and volunteer at an animal shelter, take some food around for someone that isn't very well, be of service to other people,

and then see if you still feel like you have a lack of self-worth or a lack of focus or a lack of, you don't know your place in society. There's so much good to be found in service. And we live in a society that doesn't promote service. No, it does. We live in a society that promotes wealth and greed and collection of,

things and all of those simply add to your anxiety. Whereas a life of service, I think how great it feels when you give a good Christmas present. It's that about every day. So my dad came back to Whiz Beach and served his parents, as I feel we all should. And this is something else that I'd love to talk to you about at some point because you've had such an interesting and fascinating life.

And I hope that you're able to look back on your life, including all of the hard times and realized that they were hard for you, but they weren't bad for you. Exactly that. Some of the greatest things come from the hardest moments. So the only reason we're sitting here having this conversation today is that my dad came home,

met my mum who was living locally, they got married, they had kids, one of those kids was me, and here we are having a conversation. So if my granddad doesn't break his back, I don't sit here today. Oh God, actually, when you say it like that, that is quite mad. I know.

And sometimes it's almost you feel a bit guilty because you think the hardest, worst thing that he would have ever gone through laying in that hospital bed. And actually my dad had, me and my dad had a lovely moment just recently because my dad had a new hip. And he came around from the operation and it was probably a bit of the drugs and everything.

But my dad, for the first time in a long time, was really like open and emotional. And was telling me, and you've been through, operations recently. He was telling me all about these things in his life. And he's, and the reason why he felt like that was because he, because of the operation, he couldn't feel his legs. And he said, for the first time ever, I knew how my dad would have felt in that moment. And then he said, not once did my dad ever moan. There was two things. He said, not once did my dad question,

why him? He said, the second thing, he said, my grandma went every single day to visit him at the hospital, at the James Paget, I think it was, every single day, every single day, every single day, a different person from the village drove her to the hospital. My dad was like, you did talk about service. Because everyone loved my granddad, John, John Humphrey. God, that is really... I mean, you're right. If I go back and think about my life, I wouldn't change any of it.

Yeah. I would relive my same life all over again because at 58, I am the happiest I've ever been. and that is because I've lived the life I've lived, you know. I know you moved, didn't you, when you were eight or nine? Yeah, I was born in 1978 and we moved in 1987, so I would have been about nine years old. Yeah, we went from Peterborough to Norwich. To Norwich, and it was quite a hard move for you, wasn't it?

Why was that difficult? Well, on the funny side, it was a hard move because we couldn't find a house, so we ended up moving into one of my dad's old people's homes. Now, that was great. I was taught to smoke a pipe and play pool after school at 10 years of age. Wait, wait, you do. lived in an old people's home.

Yeah, there's an old people's home called Ethel Tiple Court in Norwich. Etheltyple Court. Etheltyple. That is such a great name for old people's name. I think Ethel Tiple had left some money to create a residential home. And we couldn't find any way to live. And there was a kind of house attached to it. So we lived in the house with my sister, Rachel, my brother, Tom and my mom and dad. And after school, it was like, I had the run of the old people's home.

Now, you imagine how much they loved it. But they must have. There's a kid knocking about. But also, Jake, it's service. without you even realising. Definitely without realising. You're giving a beautiful gift. I've created a cool relationship with a guy.

Oh yeah, go on. Oh, yeah, go on. Who I'd see him after us. Now, you know, like, you, memories are weird, aren't they? I don't know whether I did this five times or 500 times. But I remember being in this tiny room. It's knocked down now, the old people's home. You'd go in through the door and you'd go to the far corner

and there was like a game's room. But all it actually was, was a room with a pool table in. and this strong thug of pipe smoke and this old boy was in there and I'd chat to him about my day at school and I'd play pool with him, I'm only 10, I'm playing pool against this old boy and he's smoking a pipe

and I'm sharing his pipe and I'm like, life lessons, right? I'm getting to know this old guy and then you also have to learn because they don't live as long as you so you don't have to cope with the emotion of losing these people. Yes.

So that was a really fascinating period. It didn't last very long less than a year and then we moved into our own house that's quite a long time though yeah it was yeah yeah yeah it was yeah it was it's a great like it's a great yeah I mean I think we've forgotten a little bit

we're just dismissive we're dismissive of that generation because we're doing far more exciting and wonderful things we forget like they created all this they've done all this before and as the population ages and as they were more elderly people alive

we definitely have to lean into what we can learn from the older generation. I actually love it when I come across on Instagram or TikTok accounts where it is like the older generation, people in their 80s and 90s sharing life advice and it always does great numbers and you're like, good!

I love that as well. So we moved to Norwich, lived in the old people's and moved out and then I definitely had a tough time at school. Why? Well, because all of the friendship groups had been created. Right.

And I was trying to, I was trying to sort of like find my way in and then and then you can't so then I probably acted like a bit of a dick trying to trying to find my way in you know just being over the top but it's so hard as a young person isn't it like what do you do when when you're not having the impact that you want to have I thought it was interesting um I heard you say once that it that you'd got called into school or your dad your parents have been called into school about you not quite fitting in and that they'd found your emotional intelligence threatening.

Yeah, that was a brilliant teacher called Mr. Pugh. And I moved to school. So, like, the bullying was awful. Like, if anyone has been bullied, they will relate to the fact that you can be almost 50 as I am and still remember the feeling. Like, the loneliness, like, is hard, isn't it? And I don't know whether, did you, were you bullied at school?

For being different, because I lived with my granny and my granddad. And when you would drop your kids off at school, could you remember the feeling as they walked off? Oh yeah, I mean, I tried very hard not to transfer it onto them because my fear was great. And a couple of my kids had a tough time at school, but they dealt with it brilliantly. School can be very cruel.

Yeah, but they've learned a lot from it. And that's what's interesting. And also, I think finding solid friendships after you have had problems making friends, you are so kind of close to your mates because you've got them like, you're like, oh my God. You're so right. Yeah.

So that was, how did you kind of cope with it? I don't think I cope with it very well, apart from just sealing myself off. So one time we were getting changed after swimming, And as I took my swimming trunks off, the guys pushed me out of the changing room with no clothes on and no tower. But out into the school car park where they were classrooms sort of all looking. So I'm standing there with like just trying to preserve my own dignity, covering off the bits that I could with the hands I had. And when that happens, it becomes like a whole school thing.

Yes. My mum spoke to a head teacher at the school at. And they decided to ask me to stand up in assembly and announce to the school that I was. being bullied and it had to stop. Can you imagine what that did? Oh, God. So in the end, there was these two school coaches, parted in the car park,

and I just used to go between the coaches in the dark at break and lunch break and just eat my sandwiches and wait for lunch break to end and then once everyone's in their classrooms, scurry back in. Heartbreaking, actually, when you think about it. And did that persist all the way through?

I basically had to leave. So I did two years at that school and I left for another school and it was so much better and the point that you make about the emotional intelligence

after I'd changed schools my parents were talking to my then form tutor called Mr Pugh and you know when you just connect with a teacher I loved Mr Pugh really connected with him him and Mr Maxwell

would like change the game for me at school and my mum and dad once said to him like what do you think is going on or why has there been problems and he just said Jacob as I was not and then Jacob just has an emotion and intelligence that most 12-year-old boys are not really connected to.

And I think that was probably what is causing the problem. They feel threatened by his ability to be real. And I do think that that's probably what's given me the career that I've had. Totally, yeah. What I would like people to understand is that if you're being bullied right now where your child is being bullied, it's always because they're finding a point of difference. Like they found with you, you lived with a grandparent, great opportunity for, bullying, like with me, emotional intelligence, great opportunity to bully someone. I can't tell you

how important it is to not allow those bullies to knock that part of you out of you. Because as you get older, as you leave school, as you embark on a career and a life, the thing that gives you the most magic in your life is the thing that is making you different to everybody else. And I think if you lose that at school, it's a real tragedy. Because the real world would reward you for being unique and for being different and having a different point. If you look at everyone that's ever changed the world, they just saw the world in a different way. If that gets knocked out of you at an early age, it's a real tragedy.

You've talked a lot about failing. And I was quite surprised. I've always just thought you had just kind of a quite simple rise through television and stuff, but I was quite surprised to see all the hurdles that you had to jump over to get to where you're going. I was trying to be a successful TV presenter and trying to make my mark. And, you know, kids TV is a competitive environment, right?

Yeah, I was really interested to see you talk about that and say it was like the most competitive environment you'd ever been. How? Well, because everybody is there wanting to take the next step. I mean, for a start, you're all young, right? So you're all kind of between 18 and 22, 23. All of you are kind of a bit high on your own supply because you've ended up as a kids TV presenter.

And maybe if you're young people growing up now, like you want to be a YouTuber right or you want to be an influencer, that you know that when we were growing up, being a kid's TV presenter was the thing. Was it? Yeah. So to land that job at like 20, 20, 21 years of age as I was, getting that job was everything until you got that job.

And then just getting it was a distraction for the next thing. And we all live our lives like this. We all want this big thing that's on the horizon. And the minute you get that big thing, that's now a distraction because you've already got it and it's all about the next thing. And we give ourselves no time to actually stop and go, I did this.

This is fantastic. So with Children's BBC, you arrive. And within six months of arriving, it's like, right, who's going to be the person that gets the BBC One work rather than the Children's BBC Channel work? Who's going to be the person that gets a Saturday morning kids telly? Who's going to be the person that might be asked to audition for Blue Peter? And then who's going to be the person that starts to get opportunities to do other things, like outside of children's BBC? And so it creates this like hyper-competitive environment where everybody wants to be. be successful and the only way to be successful is for the other people not to be successful.

And I think it creates quite a toxic environment where it is just hyper-competitive. But also, like, you're all so close to who you used to be that it kind of, it means you go harder at it. So, like, what I mean by that is, like, I've probably forgotten actually how it felt to be 20 years old and living in Norwich, you know, having been a failure at school. Whereas then I knew exactly how that felt. and I was very determined not to go back there. This segment was sponsored by Garnier.

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Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. Then, you know, you pivoted brilliantly. So this opportunity didn't happen, but you pivot somewhere else. So you have then got into sports in such a major way. Yeah.

Talk to me quickly about your time on F1 because that did sound completely magical. Yes, it was, Davina, it was magical. I mean, it was a total shock for me to get that job, right? So I was working on kids' TV at the time. And I don't remember when, but I knew I wanted to be a sports presenter. I knew that, like, Deslinem was like the hero for me back in the day. So I knew I wanted to be the new Deslinem.

So I went to see the guys at BBC Sport, and I met the head of talent. So wait, so did you kind of say, right, I want to come and meet you guys? Yeah. You facilitate it. Yeah, that's right. So well done. Yeah, thank you.

And so I knew I wanted to be a sports presenter. And I asked for a meeting and I met with the head of talent. And they said, like, tell me about your qualifications and you do have a degree in journalism, which is what they were looking for at the time. And I was like, like, I don't. And then I told her the story of me getting an E and N and a U for my 3A levels, thinking that she would think it's funny that I'd failed my exams at school. But this is like BBC Sport, you know, 20 years ago. It just sort of created a frown more than anything.

And then she said, but obviously if you've played sport to a professional standard, we can also consider you. And I was like, well, I played one game of football for the school football team. Ha, ha, ha. And she then said to me, she said, I saw you were hosting a mobster-lobster this morning. And our mobster lobster was a thing that we filmed in the Blue Peter Garden. I mean, I do remember like this being a ton of freedom.

Like, it was fun, you know. I'd dress up as a lobster. I'd wear these big, like, foam claws with pins in. And I'd run around the Blue Peter Garden popping balloons with foam in them. And if the caller got a small starfish, it was five points, and a big starfish, it was 10 points. I mean, it's ridiculous, right? But they said, oh, I saw you hosting mobster lobster this morning. And I know it was like a pointed dig of like, that's your thing.

And then they leant forwards and said, BBC Sport Don't employ people like you I'm like a kid from a little village in Norfolk Trying to shoot his shot here And I was like But you know what And I firmly believe this

When I go back to the bullying Being fired from McDonald's Wait that's a good one We haven't actually properly talked about that I mean being fired from McDonald's Tell everybody why that happened I'm like a school teacher Jake, tell everyone what you did to get fired from McDonald's.

Well, it's what I didn't do, I think. I mean, they said a lack of communication skills. I can't, like, I literally can't think of a greater communicator than you. Well, I was cooking chips. I remember at the time I was thinking, I'm just literally cooking chips on an eight-hour shift here. I don't know. Who am I meant to communicate with?

And it was kind of, like, funny. I remember my dad wrote them a letter and said, this is really hard for my boy. Oh, did he? Yeah, isn't that lovely? He stuck up for you. Yeah, he did. And I love that, actually.

But still let me deal with it myself, but did write to them and say, come on. And actually, I saw, I then got a job in a local hotel as a waiter, which I absolutely loved. And my manager at the time, I saw him in a petrol station not long ago. And he said, how are you getting on? I loved watching your career. I thought, oh, thanks so much, Ray. And he said, I remember when you first arrived, every day you'd ask me whether you're going to get fired. I said, did I?

I have no memory of this. He's like, yeah, yeah, you were so worried that you were going to lose your job. Every shift you'd come to me and say, have I done a good enough job? Am I going to lose my job? I was 18. And I'm like, Ray, thank you so much, mate, for giving me the confidence because that is a memory that I've removed from my brain. I don't remember that moment at all. But obviously, it was bothering me at the time.

And then we also, you know, we can talk in detail if you wish, I lost my grandma to suicide around this time, which was tricky. Just to explain why, because it was after your grandfather died. Yeah, so we've spoken about it. But I mean, this is just so, so lovely. I talked to Michael about this when I read that about the love of someone that life's not worth living when you lose the love of your life. God, it was just so, must have been so difficult to lose both grandparents. Yeah. So close together.

but also weirdly comforting that she was with him, you know. Yes, and like really amazing that she loved him so much that she didn't want to be without him. But very difficult, though, for the people that are left behind who feel that they're not enough. Yeah. And it was interesting actually. You know, I mentioned my dad had his hip operation.

When he was kind of coming around from that and we were having this really deep chat about my grandma, he said, you know, she came to say goodbye. to us all. And I was like, did she? And then I have this memory of her coming to our house that weekend. And you know, like you're a young kid and you're lost in your own world. I was revising for my A levels. And she came to see us. And I had zero idea. Honestly, no idea. It was just for me, another visit from Grandma on the weekend, which was not uncommon. But I was working upstairs and she came past the door and she said, hi, love. I said, hi, Grandma.

She goes, don't think I can go on. And I went, of course she can. And then carried on working as you do. And I don't think I could have changed the outcome here, right? But you do wonder afterwards, you're like, God, why was I living such a, like a, how did I dismiss that moment so much? And that was at the weekend. And then on the Tuesday, we were having a family dinner. my dad had had a call from his brother

to say can you come and we think something's happened to mum and sadly she lived in a lovely farmhouse and was bitch and at the end was a ditch at the end of the road and my dad arrived as she was came taken out of the ditch now my dad that was very hard for him and he went into a really yeah yeah yeah yeah just

closed up I think for a few years which is really very understandable you know The love of his life, yeah. So that was tough. And it was only a few weeks after she passed away that I did my A-level exams. And I definitely don't think that I failed them because of that. I thought I was a late developer, Davina.

I was like, I was just chilled. Like I look at my kids now. We're always doing things, always busy, always got interests. I honestly went to school, came home, watched like Danger Mouse. ate my tea and went to bed. Great cartoon. But I was like, I was just floating. I really was just floating.

I'd have to give huge credit to my parents for not push, push, push, push. They allowed me to be in this period and just find my own way. So I then went to get my A level results and I remember opening my first envelope and it was an E. And I thought, well, if I get two A's, I've still got my place at uni. I mean, how ridiculous. And then I got an N and a U. So I got ENU for my three A levels. But you know how we've spoken about

like things that are hard and not necessarily bad and the fact that I wouldn't even be here if my grandfather hadn't had his tragic accident in the 60s? I would also, even if that had happened that I was there and I'd pass my A levels, I also wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. No. Because I had to go back to school and do another year,

which again was building my resilience because I'm in a classroom with a load of kids that are younger than me. me and I'm having to kind of just accept the fact that I'm with these kids. And the day that I went back, a local TV channel wrote to the school to ask if kids studying politics would like to go onto a TV show and talk about politics. And I went into the nice, and the funny thing is, I turned up 24 hours early. Like, I turned up at like 4 o'clock.

And this girl came down and greeted me. And I said, hi, I'm here to do the audition for being on the politics show. And she said, if that's tomorrow. And I'm like, great start, Jake. And then I just said, look, my mates have gone off and joined military. They've gone off to uni. They've had a gap year. They've got a job.

That's not my story because I've just messed up all my exams. Is there any chance I could come and work here on the weekends and do some work experience? So I used to go to this place called Rapture Television on a Saturday and a Sunday all day. And I would move sets around, answer phones, operate the auto queue, work with the sound man, move prizes about, get cups of tea, whatever needed to be done. They used to pay me five pounds cash for working Saturday and Sunday. Then because they had no money, we all had to do bits of presenting. And I just, as soon as I put an earpiece on and started doing this on a live TV show, like no viewers, cable telly, like no one watching, great place to make your mistakes. I found it easy.

And there was people crying because they were anxious about going on or getting things wrong. And I was like, why is this such a big deal? Like this is so simple to me. And then one of the presenters left. And the guy, the producer came to me and said, look, would you like to host the show? It was a three-hour live show on a Sunday. Yeah, and he goes, we'll double your money. £10 cash.

One day a guy said, you know, you should make a show real. What's one of those? Cut together the best bits of my presenting. Sent it to London. It was seen by someone at the BBC. I ended up doing little bits on, as like a reporter for some TV shows on Children's BBC. Wow. And in 2002, they created the CBBC channel.

And three of the people in the meeting had received my show, and all three of them went, I think this guy would be good. And that's how I ended up on kids' telly and then F1 and then football and then sitting here with you. So again, like we need to not tell people that failure is bad and success is good. That failure in my A level was the greatest thing

that has arguably happened in my career. Fantastic. I'm so pleased it happened. And I think as parents it's important. It's not just important for kids to hear that message, but it's important for parents to hear that message. Don't stress or fret about your kids' journey. It's just their journey. They'll get there in the end.

I'd like to talk to you about the manosphere and how hard it is. I think what's been interesting, it's been brewing for a long time, I think, that young men and older men and boys have lost their way and society is feeding so much. conflicting information to what it is to be a man and how to be a good man. And it was a very basic set of rules in like the 40s and 50s.

You know, for my grandparents, I grew up with my grandparents, stay at home, wife and mum, man works, and that was that, like, you know, nobody, no women really worked then. And then we've all wanted to kind of become a bit more independent. And then I think through women becoming stronger and being more independent and then feminism and which has all been a good thing, it's complicated being a man now and how to find your feet. It is. And I think that as men, we're still kind of struggling with the traditional patriarchy, right? It's also a patriarchy that a lot of people, and me included don't feel that we belong to.

Sometimes we feel like we're being judged. or spoken about in a way that we don't even relate to those men from a previous generation. And that's not to criticise those men from a previous generation because they were living by the rules that were set for them. You know, if we all were living hundreds of years ago, we would all have very different views about the world, most of which wouldn't be accepted today. But that's not to criticise that period. It's to understand that period.

So how, when your question was how have I got to be the man I am today, by not having an opinion, I think is probably the answer. Opinion is the lowest form of knowledge, right? What do you mean by that? For us to have an opinion doesn't need us to understand the other person. Yet we live in a society that promotes opinion all the time. It's all about having a strong opinion.

If you have a strong opinion, then you get voted as the President of the United States. If you have a strong opinion, then the algorithm will pick up the content that you create. If you have a strong opinion, then you can appeal to people in the extremities. If you have a strong opinion, then you can create a following.

Now that's dangerous when the people with an opinion are causing devastating effects for the people that start to follow them. So what we have to do is stop promoting a culture where we reward opinions and start creating a culture where we reward people for empathy. A strong man is an empathetic man, a caring, understanding man. And then there will be people that go, well, that's not what a man is. but that's the strongest thing you can be is empathetic because you can nurture, you can protect, you can love, you can provide, you can be vulnerable, you can make mistakes, you can be all of those things

that I think makes you a great man. I think masculinity is something to celebrate. When we talk about toxic masculinity, I really worry about the message that that sends, particularly young men growing up today. It's like saying masculinity is toxic masculinity. It's toxic. Corset links the two. Absolutely.

And there is scientific research and psychological research that says the conversation around toxic masculinity damages the mental strength of young men. I agree with that completely. So what we actually have to do is give young men credit for the world on which they're growing up in. But also I think that we have to be really clear about what's actually happening here.

And what I think is happening with the conversation around the manosphere is that we're treating a mind minority like a majority. Yes. Just please expand on that because that's such an important point to make. I have a son. I have a dad.

I am a man. I host a podcast that a lot of men listen to. I speak to a lot of men in my everyday life. They are good people. They are caring, kind, thoughtful, compassionate, considerate, loving, brilliant people. please don't let society and let media and let social media and let narratives tell us that we have millions and millions and millions of people following dangerous male influences

and poor male role models. I don't believe that. I absolutely think that the messages from the likes of HS Tiki-toki and Andrew Tate and some of the ways in which we see the likes of Elon Musk and Donald Trump lead, countries and businesses, I definitely think a lot of that is toxic. I don't like a lot of the things that I see from David Goggins, who seems to feel like he has to punish himself to be valued. I don't like listening to Joe Rogan. I don't think that the way they talk and the way they converse and the message that they put out there are healthy. But I also don't believe

that the majority of men are bad. I think men are incredible. I think they're definitely trying to find their way in the world today. I think that it's, confusing time for a lot of men. It is, isn't it? But I think that what we need to do is is lean into each other and lean into opening up more. It's so hard because the answer is the one thing that men don't do enough of.

The answer is conversations like this. The answer is groups of men coming together. The answer is... How can you do that? How can you get that to happen? You have to just start it. You have to just start the conversation. And that's what I've...

And it's actually really interesting because, you know, high performance, we have a lot of male guests. And we have a lot of conversations that I know will appeal to men. And we have a male listenership or viewership of probably 60 to 70% male. And that garners some criticism. I sometimes get into and people go, why is there so many men on your show? And I will never apologize for having conversations on high performance that feel it gives men the opportunity to open up and be themselves. because men are killing themselves at an alarming rate. You know, men are struggling inside and unable to tell anyone.

And if I can just create a platform that gives them the opportunity to be seen and to be heard. And every day, every single day, I get messages saying, I'm really struggling. I've got issues in my personal life or issues in my work. And the things that you talk about have really helped. Then I'm delighted. And I think that we have this impression that if you're going to be successful,

you have to be a certain type of guy. It has to be all about productivity. It has to be all about punishing yourself for success. It has to be all about wealth. It has to be all about showing off. It has to be all about accumulating things. You know, I've had a really good broadcasting career. I've created one of the biggest production companies in Europe.

I've created a podcast that's listened to by hundreds of millions of people over the last few years. you can do all of that with empathy, with care, with understanding, with emotion, with connection. It's not that you've got over here the kind of powerful, hyper-masculine, manosphere, successful guys. And then you've got all these meek, quiet, low-achieving men that don't really belong in the world. It's not true. You can be a great guy and massively successful. by connecting to other people.

I think the hardest thing though is that someone like me who has had perceived success, I can sit here and talk to you about my emotions. I can tell you about the times I've failed. I can be vulnerable and open. And I think the problem is we've created a world about I've earned the right to talk like this because I've been successful. Well, I'm actually probably the last person that needs to do this. The people that do need to do this are those people that haven't been successful,

that are struggling, that no one is listening to them, that feel like a failure, that can't hold down a job, that haven't got a career, that can't have long-term, strong relationships with people. They're the men that need to be given the opportunity to speak up. They're the men that society doesn't want to hear from. They want to hear from the successful people, because they've been successful, therefore their opinion is valid and their opinion isn't. That's a real problem.

Everyone has an equal right to share how they're feeling, and if anything, the people who are really struggling are the ones that we need to give a platform to and give them an opportunity to share how they're feeling. There is an estimated 31.1 billion sitting in lost pension pots in the UK. 31.1 billion! This is me when I was at MTV. Remember that like it was yesterday. Did I have a pension? Who was it with? And do you know what? I couldn't tell you. And I suspect I'm not the only one. But the good news is, Monzo, our sponsors,

can help you find and combine yours. In partnership with their tracing provider, Rangrop, they are the only bank that offer the service for free. You tell them where you worked and when, and they do the searching for you. It's basically a private investigator for your pension. So far, more than 150,000 pensions worth over £900 million have been transferred into Monzo. That could be you.

So download Monzo now and keep track of your pensions alongside the rest of your money. The value of your pension could go up or down and you could get back less than you put in. You need a free Monzo current account to open a Monzo pension, 18 to 70 years old only, UK residents only, T's and C's apply. Right, I need women to listen to this sponsored message from British Heart Foundation because we are finally talking more about what happens to us during menopause. The sleep, the brain fog, the hormones, all of it. But we still don't talk nearly enough about our hearts.

Cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer of women over 45 worldwide. And after menopause, the risk increases significantly. Now, please don't hear that and panic. I'm telling you this because I think women deserve to know about this. And because there are brilliant people working every day to do something about it. British Heart Foundation funds life-saving research into preventing, diagnosing and treating women's cardiovascular disease. More research means more breakthroughs and those breakthroughs can mean more time, more time to

live, more time to start over, more time to begin again. To help fund life-saving research, please visit bhf.org.org.com slash keep us beating to donate now and keep us beating. It's quite interesting because you've talked about failure as being one of kind of your greatest assets in a funny kind of way. And I was thinking about women are lucky in a way because our struggle of being a woman with periods and perimenopause and menopause and having children and giving birth and like the kind of enormity of that

and what happens to your hormones and the monthly struggle. You know, it's like it's big. But we all go through it and we can all relate to each other and we all get that we're all on a kind of complicated journey of women's health and it bonds us immediately whereas it feels competitive for men somehow that they've got to kind of prove

themselves. You're so right. You're so right. You know, what bonds us is exactly that. It's our ability to not speak and our ability to try and solve the world ourselves and the ability to cope and the ability to take it all on our shoulders and the ability to lie awake at night with a million things swimming through our brains that we can't possibly tell anybody because we feel that that will lead to them questioning whether we're a real man.

It's a dangerous, it's a dangerous, dangerous way to think. And I think that actually the conversations around the manosphere where we talk about toxic masculinity or we talk about young men are all following the wrong people or the power that these social media influencers have. I think the real risk with that, is that we don't stop like we're very quick to label and criticize

right but we don't stop to ask how have these people ended up creating such a following and how have the people who have following them ended up following them and it's no good just to say where they're bad people it's not the truth

there was an issue somewhere that is leading young men to those dark corners of the internet there's an issue somewhere that means that those people with those toxic opinions manage to find a following. I do not believe that it's the majority of men. I still believe it's the minority of men.

But I also believe that instead of, how can I best put this? Instead of pulling men out of the river, we need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in. Yes. Can I just say something? You just said, I don't know how to put this and then pulled out the greatest analogy I've ever heard. You can't just like...

Sorry. You can't just grasp an analogy like that and just like slap it on the table. That's amazing. Go upstream and find out why they're falling in in the first place. That's exactly it. Yeah. The answer here has to be leaning in with compassion,

finding why did you feel the need to go to that place? You know, I have a son. And I fear that unless he gets the right messages, he could easily end up there. He's the most magical, wonderful, caring, kind, golden-hearted boy I've ever met in my life. Like, he's everything to me. Do you know why?

Go on. Because you're his dad. Ah, you're so kind. Yeah. And it's the greatest job in the world. Yeah, it is, isn't it? Yes, it's the greatest job in the world. And I actually love being a girl dad.

Oh my gosh. Like, the best times of my day is, because Seb falls asleep. like that. Does he? Florence does not. The best time is when she's lying in bed and you go in and the brain starts to wear. The chat.

And she starts to share things and you're having the chat. And I know that's the point which almost every parent goes, look, it's late. I haven't got the time. You know, I think one thing I've really enjoyed about parenting is working out how to try and get it right because there is no manual right, is there. And when, and I've totally changed my opinion on parenting. parenting as well. I used to think that when your kid is badly behaved, they need telling off. Well, when your kid is badly behaved, they're only badly behaved in front of someone that they trust to be badly behaved in front of. So, of course, you tell them the boundaries

and you share what's going on, but you also understand that your child feels safe enough to have an opinion. When they finish school and they're a bit quiet or they're a little bit bouchy or they're a bit dismissive of you, they are just trying to process a whole day's worth of information and the first time that they cannot be sitting up straight answering questions is in the car with you so give them that moment and at the end of the day finally they can process all their thoughts and just try and share things and you know damien the amazing damien who i host high performance with i remember when i was saying to him i just feel like um a couple of years ago i felt like i was getting everything wrong what do you mean um i felt like on the outside you would

looked at my life and thought, God, that is amazing. You're presenting the Premier League, the Champions League. You've had a great career behind you. High performance is doing well. You've created Whisper Group, which has got like 300 staff. You've got two kids, a happy marriage, lovely dream house. You're living in Norfolk where all your family are. What?

I felt so out of kilter. I felt so because I was not prioritising the right things. We actually had a guy come on the show called Shane Parrish. Have you interviewed Shane Parrish? No. You and him would get on like amazing. He created something called the Farnham Street Blog. and he's actually a productivity expert,

but that doesn't do him any justice because I think productivity is a bit of a dirty word now, right? But I'd call him more a happiness expert. And I said how I feel to him. And he said, well, what do you love? And I said, well, I love my kids, my wife, and like a small amount of time to do like something for me, have a game of paddle, take the dog for a walk, whatever is.

He said, cool, what sort of diary do you have? And I said, well, I used my phone. He goes, show me your dog. And I showed him my diary. He went through it and he said, well, where in your diary is there any time for Harriet? Flan said, or yourself? And I was like, listen, man, this is like, I'm not so embarrassing. I have to put time in my diary to be with my kids and my wife.

That feels like a proper life fail. And he said, well, your wife and your kids and time for you is really important. You said, but life is full of urgent. Urgent work issues, urgent conversations, urgent problems, urgent stuff that needs to be solved. and the urgent will always be the important. So you have to prioritise the important. So at the start of every week, get your phone, and he called it pay yourself first.

He said, put in a couple of moments with Harriet. You can still have more, but you make sure those two don't leave the diary. You go and do something with your kids a couple times a week and they don't leave the diary. You go and play paddle and walk the dog twice a week, and that doesn't leave the diary. It's as important as anything that's urgent.

And that just transformed everything. I was like, oh my goodness, I now feel like I'm back in the way. kilter but I also felt a couple years ago that I was just getting it wrong with the kids you know I wasn't I just wasn't quite understanding that when they at the end of the day when they want to talk to you that's their opportunity to open up and to process stuff it can't just be about go to sleep because we've got to get up tomorrow like and I see a lot of like

other families and it's like stressful all the time like stressful mornings stressful after school stressful to get your home what done stressful to get to bed stressful on the weekends. Busy, busy, busy, busy. But this is it. I remember. If this is stressful, then you're,

then something's wrong because this is all you get. Yeah. There isn't, you know. And then they leave home. I'm telling you, my youngest is 19. You've been there.

And if you could go back and do it all again, you would, you know. But imagine how chilled you'd be if you know how to seven year old. And he's coming your bed in the night. And there you go. And then you'd be like, yes, come in my bed in the night. Yes.

Be late for school. Yes, let's go and make dens when we should be. eating our breakfast. Like, none of it matters. None of it matters. None of it matters. God, that's a great message as well, I think, for parents listening. We spend so much time worrying and like we were talking about, you know, let them fail, let them, just none of it matters.

Because the great thing about failing, obviously, is you've been resilience in young people. The other great thing about failure early on in life is that you know those people at school, and we were all at school with them that are just like flying. Everything is great. Yes. The risk with that, and if you've got a young person in your life where everything's easy, you need to try and find points of failure because otherwise they develop this idea that they're somehow special, that they've got the golden answer, that they know the secret to a successful life and no one does. And that's a really dangerous way to begin because you think you've got the answers,

and then you get to 21 and realize you don't, and you've got nowhere to turn to try and find them. You need to encourage a culture of searching for answers at every young age if you can. You're talking about being a dad to a girl earlier and Flo just turned 13. How's that for you? Because obviously heading into that, the relationship has to change a little bit. Like you've got to give them a bit more autonomy and freedom and... Yeah. Quite hard for a dad, I think.

Yeah, it is hard for a dad. I'm, because I actually see Flo going more tall to her mum now because like going shopping for clothes together is a really cool thing and like going and sitting in a cafe as mother and daughter and having like a cool mother daughter day is like a really lovely thing and I'm fully aware that there are things that I have that are special with Sebastian so I think as a dad trying to find your role in this new era is quite interesting I want to be her opportunity to really be her

like to really be ourself. So I like the idea of like you close the bedroom door and you say, look, you've got a lot going on in your life. You've got a lot of friends to deal with and challenges and your body's changing and your emotions are changing. But when this door shuts and it's just the two of us, just tell me everything. Like everything.

I'm a safe space. I mean, I've been over the top talking to her about periods, right? Because I don't want to be that dad. That's so healthy. Yeah. So good. You know, when it finally happens, she's sort of waiting for mum to come home before she can tell something. I want, I just want her to feel free when she's with her dad.

I want her to feel safe and protected. But more than that, I want I just to feel really free. I've got an amazing tip for you. Yes. Somebody gave it to me when my kids were turning teenagers. And it was about never say no to a teenager. That's nice. In fact, I'm seeing the girl who told me this tonight at the first.

the school union. So never say no to a teenager means when they come down and they want to do something, go somewhere, go to a party, going out in not very many clothes, and you're like not on your Nellie, you say, right, come to the negotiating table. So that's usually the kitchen table. And let's sit down and talk it through. So tell me why you want to do that. Okay, well, I'm telling you why I'm a bit nervous.

can we negotiate on the outcome and you give a bit and they give a bit and then you come to an agreement and nobody ever walks out of the room and says I hate you and slams the door it's always like thanks and I say thanks for

giving me a bit of a little bit of a little bit It's so good I think that's so good is because I look at Florence and see a six-year-old Yes and she's not No

and when you're a six-year-old Dad does decide stuff right because you're sick, because you can't decide for yourself. And I have to understand that she's not a six-year-old. She's a 13-year-old and she deserves the right to share her opinion. Tell me what she wants to do. It's absolutely brilliant. Because you parent, you know, you make the mistake of parenting a 13-year-old,

like you parent a 7-year-old has to change. Got to adapt, yeah. I thank you for that. That's a pleasure. We've actually got something for you. Oh. I'm going to give you that. I'm going to ask you to read it out.

Oh wow. Was it a letter from you? Oh. Would you read it to us? I could try, yeah. If I can't finish it, maybe you can take over. Daddy is always there for me and I feel like I can always talk to him. He set an amazing example to me to always work hard.

He always pushes me. Every day on the way to school, he tells me to be the light in the room. Dad has taught me simple things such as to be kind to other people. and even though it's something small, it has a deep impact, especially if that person is having a hard day. We have a great... Oh, that's nice. We have a great connection.

Thank you. And I will always... We have a great connection, and I will always want to hang out with him. Oh, that's the hardest part as a parent, isn't it? Because that's all you want. Yeah. You just want them to want to hang out with you when they're grown up.

Yeah. Then you've done your job. But you have, right? Look. Everyone says when you're a teenager, you won't want to spend time with your dad. But I know I always will because our bond is so strong. I mean, what a letter. What a letter.

That's the dream. That's the dream letter to have your child write you something like that at 13. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Normally you're the most annoying parent in the universe. I mean, the fact that she says she can always talk to me. Yeah. That is lovely. I think it's also okay to say he's set an example to work hard.

Yes, of course. We don't talk often enough about the hard work. Put the light in the room. The light in the room. Oh my God. But these are the messages. The repetition is the key, right? Yeah.

I think with kids. It's a repeated message every day. It turns into a core memory. Mine was, David Hopkins, because you're very good at name-checking people. David Hopkins was a head teacher at my kid school. Right. And he said,

a leaving speech, aim high. Yeah, lovely. And I thought that was so nice. It wasn't like be the best. Yeah. It was just aim high. Like, you don't have to get there, but just aim. And I used that and I kept going, just to aim high, like, just don't stress out.

Just aim. It's so good because it's not outcome driven. Yeah. It's not achieve great things, is it? Yeah. You know, like, you know, I've done. had these conversations for years and there's three things that you can do in your life, the best you can, where you are with what you've got. If that's all any of us ever do, well done.

Think how great the world will be. If we all just did the best we go to where we are with what we've got, we don't know everything. So we can't know things that we don't know. It's where we are right now. We're just doing our best. And I think we don't reward people for that Often enough, it's too much about the outcome. Can I talk to you a little bit about social? Yeah. It's good. Oh, yeah. Knowing like if she can just, I mean, Flo is the light in the room.

Yeah. But people need to realize that that is where you can. We've spoken earlier, like, be a mosquito. Being the light in the room is being a mosquito. Just walk in a room and change the temperature in that room. It's an amazing human power. And we all have the case. All have it.

The person that did it the best in my life was Eddie Jordan. He would walk in a room. a room and transform the mood. He would just, like, impact people, and it's a great thing to be able to impact people. Tell me how he did that. Because he wasn't afraid to be embarrassed. And we live in a world now.

So this weekend, it was Florence's 13th birthday party. And it was very interesting for me because we had 10 of her friends, and we sat down for food, and we took them to a pub. It was a surprise for Florence. She didn't know what was happening. And a few minutes in, it's all very quiet.

And I'm thinking, what is going on here. So I then said, right, we're going to play our version of what I lie to you, give us two facts and we have to work out which one's real and which one is, and just to sort of break the ice. And it got me thinking that young people are too afraid

to expose themselves. They're too afraid of embarrassment. Yes. And embarrassment, you know, Stephen Bartlett, who is the creator of flight story, has said this before. Embarrassment is the price of entry. Embarrassment is the price of entry.

And I love failure is the price of ambition. If you're going to fail, the price of ambition is to fail. That's also amazing. And I do have this fear that young people are. Like, they don't want to be embarrassed. But like, man, all the best stuff's on the other side of being embarrassed. Yes. Isn't it?

Yes. Like every, I'm sure you relate to this. You know, when you're starting out your TV presenting career, the truth is that you turn up and you're kind of excited because you're the presenter. And they go, okay, everyone ready, we're about to roll. You have this moment where you go, I don't know, I'll just have to embarrass me. myself a bit now because I've got to be the one to stand in front of the camera and do a funny face or do a, you know, in your early days of street, mate, do the funny walk down the road.

Like, you weren't, you couldn't be overly self-conscious doing that stuff. And again, it's about less about inside and more about outside. And that's how we can create great young people. It's so interesting because some, this is obviously totally off topic, but I watch in your episode with Joel Domit. And the two of you were sitting talking about, like, hosting comment relief and how much of an honor it is and how much you can't wait to do it and five years ago 10 years ago I would have been watching that with envy but also with right how can I make that happen and the really interesting

for me is I watched it thinking I have no desire for that it's really interesting isn't it how you've let go of certain things in your life and I was absolutely at one time like defined by being a TV presenter you know and then you realize got it's the joy of getting older. I think so. I like the fact that I don't think like I thought 10 years ago. Yes. Like I'm a totally different person.

And that's great because that's how life should be, I think. And it's important to say that because it means that everybody's free to change. I'm going to wrap this up by telling you I have had such a good time and I feel like I could have gone on for another hour. Thank you. I'm coming to hug you. I love you. So just in case you missed this episode here, if you love this episode,

I know you're going to love that.