How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - ON PERSPECTIVE… With Adeel Akhtar and Pat Cummins

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Starting point is 00:01:29 from household names to first-time business owners just getting started. And massive brands like Heinz, Mattel, and even Haley Bieber's brand road all use Shopify. If Haley Bieber's doing it, I want it to. With Shopify's built-in AI tools, marketing and beautiful templates, you can reach customers wherever they scroll. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your £1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com.com.uk slash fail. Go to Shopify.com.com.uk slash fail. Here, your first, this new year, with Shopify by your side. Welcome back to this week's episode reflecting on some of the best bits from the How to Fail Archive. This week we're taking a look at how keeping perspective is sometimes easier said than done. And even some of the most successful people, including actors and

Starting point is 00:02:37 athletes, struggle with it too. First off, actor Adele Acta talks about his past self, failing to keep things in perspective, but how becoming a parent helped him to do just that, and he finally cracked it. Cricketing legend Pat Cummings discusses how losing his beloved mom brought perspective on sport and how when he's on tour now, he doesn't just want to be looking at the clock, but instead really endeavours to be present in the moment. First up, we hear from a deal. Your final failure is your failure to put things in perspective. Oh yeah. Yes. I suppose in the sense that there's some things that take a lot of thought and there's other things that you don't you think about that much.

Starting point is 00:03:25 I suppose that's what I mean. And the benefit of age maybe means that you can be a bit discerning as to what those things are. Like definitely with my career, I go, okay, there's a character. I can see it and I understand where that lies with me and how I'm going to play it. My failing perspective, but when I was a lot younger, would be like, right, all the research, how does he walk? What's his shoes?

Starting point is 00:03:49 Does he like prawn sandwiches? Which is a real thing. People sort of like, what sandwich does he eat? So to be, with age, you could sort of be a bit more economic with your energy and how you invest in things and stuff. Do you think you have a tendency to depression? Oh, very good question. I think I did when I was in that sort of chunk of time,

Starting point is 00:04:10 maybe in my late 20s, early 30s. I definitely, looking back on that now, I would say I wasn't totally happy. But as of late, like, I wouldn't. I've never ever felt that level of despair. And I think it's because of this ability to just be myself, you know? I think the through line with all this, now I'm thinking about it, is the moments that you feel that anxiety, the moments you feel the depression,

Starting point is 00:04:51 the moments you feel those really intense feelings of whatever emotions they are, there's a sort of incongruity between how you see yourself and how you're trying to present yourself to the world. And now I'm just sort of caught up with the fact of not having to perform any other part of myself that isn't weird and complicated, you know.

Starting point is 00:05:19 Given your experiences of your childhood, and your quest to embody the truth of yourself, that essential truth. How has having your own children changed your perspective? Has it made you more or less anxious, do you think? Somebody told me this sort of psychological, this sort of child development stage from naught to five. And it's called Emperor Narcissism. Have you heard of this? Yes.

Starting point is 00:05:48 It's wicked, isn't it? My best friend's a therapist. That's the only reason I've heard of it. Cool, cool, cool. I love it because it suddenly makes sense of your role as a parent where this little emperor is running around and you're like, I'm so sorry.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Like you're apologising way more than you... Like he's really, really terrible. I was he with a good mood today? I love that, you know. And if I didn't have kids, I wouldn't be able to conceptualise what that is. And basically what that is It's we need to feel the center of somebody's world.

Starting point is 00:06:25 But then when I look in the world and I see that not happening and there's an incongruity with people, there was something there, you know, something happened where you weren't, you didn't feel like you were the center of things, whether it's through our writing, whether it's through our writing or whether it's through our acting or whatever else.

Starting point is 00:06:42 You just want to go, oh, I hope I'm making a little bit of a step in that direction for people who never did. it's a play again like that thing i'm saying like a placeholder for really complicated feelings my kids have just taught me to sort of go further and deeper in that journey really there's another element to this failure which is incredibly sad and i want to preface this by saying i'm so sorry for your loss and if at any point you don't want to talk about this please tell me and it's about losing your

Starting point is 00:07:19 beloved mum and you were on tour in India in 2023 when this was happening. Could you tell us about that? Yeah, of course, I think that's the other layer as well to kind of the end of 2021 and Albi being born was we knew mum didn't have very long. It was probably months more than years. You know, every time I was going away on a tour, I knew that was time that was, you know, finite and it was time that I could have been spending with mum. You know, really, really, really. really challenging. I was over in India playing in a test series when kind of mum went into palliative care. So I flew out to India knowing that I was going to be back on a plane a week or two later, kind of flying back to be with mum. Obviously, I think, you know, mum and dad were really

Starting point is 00:08:07 strong with me going. They derive so much joy from sitting together watching me play cricket on TV and representing Australia. So they were adamant that I should go. I think the other layer to it as well was, you know, they, you know, mum particularly was a super private person. Dad is as well, they don't want any fuss ever. And the nature of my role is, you know, if I'm starting to miss cricket, it kind of becomes public pretty quickly. So I felt that tussle as well, I think, of just wanted to be a son. But yeah, it was kind of half me that wanted to continue to keep playing, but the other half just wanted to be a sun lying at the foot of the bed. Your mum was diagnosed with cancer. Was it breast cancer? Breast cancer, yeah. And how many

Starting point is 00:08:50 years ago was that? So mum first got diagnosed in, I think it was about 2005. I was in year seven. And then the last kind of four or five where it was, yeah, knew that it was going to be terminal. So all of your teenage years were played out against this backdrop of your mum's illness. I think mum, dad tried to protect it from us. So I remember I was, you know, third. years old and yeah mom's dad kind of sat us children down and was like oh mom's going to be sick for a little while she's going to get some treatment but it's only going to be you know six months and then she'll be back to her normal health so I was like oh I'll take your word for it whatever no worries you know yeah you don't realize till afterwards when you're a parent and you're an adult

Starting point is 00:09:34 just the severity of it yeah once I was kind of back into my 20s it came back and yeah you started to realize that no they kind of they knew this day was going to come, whereas I probably, all of us kids probably hadn't fully grasped that. That was such an act of parental love, that shielding and protection. You said that you wanted to be a son and lie at the foot of the bed. Did you get a chance to do that? Yeah, no, so I flew back and had about 10 days in the palliative hospital with mum, dad and, you know, all my siblings.

Starting point is 00:10:08 It was a really magical 10 days. Like, we shared a lifetime full of memories and stories and lots of laughter, tears, but a really special, just family time, really. I'm so glad I went home. I'd be ruining that for the rest of my life or I didn't. Sometimes I speak to people who have witnessed or supported someone through the dying process, and they say that it teaches them so much about life and how to live life. Has it changed the way that you live your life?

Starting point is 00:10:39 100% probably comes down to the time management i'm just like so crystal clear now and like you know family's priority you just can't keep kicking things down the road you know a lot of sports people but you know maybe me in particular you think okay i'll play cricket till i'm 35 36 alby will be six years old and then life will start and then we can start hanging out as a family i've definitely changed my mindset now it's like no i'm going to live life you know say a big emphatic yes to things that we want to really do as a family. You know, when we're on tour, let's make sure we have the time of our lives because when we're on tour, we're away from our families where we don't want to just want to watch the clock kind of tick by, bring the

Starting point is 00:11:19 families along, just trying to live life a little bit more. Do you feel your mom with you when you're on the pitch? Yeah, every day. You know, I think particularly since becoming a father as well, you remember the lessons that kind of she passed down to us kids. What was her name? Maria. And what was she like? did everything you could imagine. So when we're, you know, really young children, she set up like a play group for, you know, the community and all our kind of kids. When we got a little bit older, she created like a social group for us teenagers to hang out. And then kind of once we moved out, she started setting up some disability netball teams. She'd go and feed the charity

Starting point is 00:12:01 on Wednesday. She's never hear a bad word said about mum. She was amazing. It sounds like you learn so much about leadership from her as well as love. Totally, yeah, 100%. That's always been instilled in us kids is, I guess, how lucky we are and not to waste that. Please do follow How to Fail to Get New Episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you. you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - ON PERSPECTIVE… With Adeel Akhtar and Pat Cummins

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