The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - Moment 18 - Ben Fogle on How He Lost & Found His Confidence

Episode Date: August 12, 2021

In these ‘Moment’ episodes of my podcast, I’ll be selecting my favourite moments from previous episodes of The Diary Of A CEO. Being the writer, tv presenter and adventurer that he is, you’d be forgiven for thinking Ben Fogle is a man full of confidence, but that hasn’t always been the case. In this moment episode, Ben takes us along his journey with self-confidence. From early childhood to the top of Everest, Ben reveals how he built his confidence and learned to love who he is. Episode 81 - https://g2ul0.app.link/pcgvNmfwDib Ben: https://twitter.com/benfogle https://www.instagram.com/benfogle/

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio.

And thirdly to Amazon Music who, when they heard that we were expanding to the united states and i'd be recording a lot more over in the states they put a massive billboard in time square um for the show so thank you so much amazon music um thank you to our team and thank you to all Ben, as I read through your story, your books, your interviews, and I remember watching a YouTube documentary of you sailing across the Atlantic many years ago, obviously the most sort of striking, distinctive, standout thing about the way that you've chosen to live your life over the last couple of decades is your seemingly insatiable appetite for adventure, risk, challenge, extreme adventure, as it relates to Everest and things like that. Where did that come from? I think it's, do you know, it's not necessarily an absolute thirst for adventure. I think it's about kind of finding the real me.

See, if I go right back, as a child, I was so shy. I had no confidence. I failed all my exams. I was hopeless at sport. And actually, I think all of the things that I've done since have been about like rebuilding. It sounds a weird way to describe it, but it's not just, I'm not an adrenaline junkie. There's this assumption that maybe, you know, that would be how to describe myself, but it's not that at all actually loads of the things i do are really really slow you know like rowing across the atlantic took best part of two months walking

across antarctica took many many months climbing everest took many months so actually if if it was jumping off a mountain base jumping or going uh on a motorbike or even a mountain bike down a steep slope. I hate all that. It's too fast. I quite like this slow movement, but I'm quite good at long endurance events. And all of those have been about rebuilding my confidence. And what took your confidence or why didn't you have confidence? I think it's the fact that I was, I was hopeless academically for many different reasons, undiagnosed dyslexia, a kind of a slight mistake, maybe not on my parents' part, but they, my father's Canadian. He wanted me to be bilingual. So I was sent to a French school and I just, I just, I just didn't, I couldn't do the French school. The French system, and with all apologies to any French watching or listening to this,

it's just quite a hard system, the French one. And it was quite strict. And I'm just, as a child, I was surrounded by dogs. Dad was a vet. Mum was an actress. It was all quite a liberal. My actual childhood at home was quite liberal full of actors um lots of drink uh lots of animals around it was I suppose crazy but normal for me but then in this French system it was very rigid and and it meant that I didn't learn any French and my English went backwards. So when I went back into the system, I was way behind.

And the result was the combination of that and dyslexia just meant I was hopeless. I could barely write. And I failed all my exams. And I was surrounded by people who were better than me at everything. Everyone seemed to be more handsome if it was the boys. They had more luck with the girls. They were better at playing um sports because they could actually kick a football unlike me that have i have two left legs and and they were good at um academics and when it came to the exams they just they didn't even you know they could be up all night watching stuff and then the next day turn up for the exam whereas i was just i was almost making myself vomit i was so nervous about the exams because i

knew i was going to fail and this is this is the first thing i convinced myself i'd fail and of course i ended up failing because what i've discovered since is that so much of what we do and what we endure and how we test ourselves is here in the mind and if you go in with a negative attitude which i had then it's self fulfilling and and the result was hopeless as everything and it just stripped me of my confidence i i had you know i just i didn't believe in myself and that that went right through you know probably into my 30s if i'm to be really honest i think that was always lingering over me, this little voice just telling me that I wasn't good enough at what I did. And did that voice come from your own assessment of yourself? Or was there external forces,

bullying or your parents? No, my parents were amazing. You know, my parents, I don't think they could have done more for me than they did. I think it me than they did i think it was no i think it was all internal if i'm to be honest i think there's a pressure i think there was an external pressure to conform because if you think about how if you take the schooling model and the education model it is kind of about conforming, because exams are all about getting the correct grades. We're learning to a specific model that has been set by the government. And it's sort of painting by numbers when you think about education. And if you don't

hit those targets, then you've effectively failed the system and for me you can hear from my accent you know i'm i'm posh i went to a private school mom and dad worked really hard to send me to a private school and actually there was a great guilt that the fact that they had worked so hard to be able to afford to send me there and yet i still failed so i think actually a lot of that voice was internal. And actually, I wish if I could go back in time, I wish I could kind of shake my shoulder, shake a young me on the shoulders and go, just don't, don't overthink things, just chill out a little bit. And were you a chronic overthinker?

I was, and I still am. I still overthink things, if I'm to be honest. To work in the medium that I's a journalist that has written something um which i don't like um or or which doesn't seem true i take it really personally which is kind of really strange because i should have i should have been able to overcome that after 20 years and i'm almost there steven i'm almost there but one of the reasons I'm happy to talk about it is because I know I'm not alone. I know there are many, many people out there who are high achievers, who've done brilliant things in life,

but are still burdened with their own voice of doubt. And through all of these challenges I've done, I've been able to really build that confidence. And I'd say I'm a few hundred meters from the summit now of peak confidence. And I can't wait until I'm there. I hope I reach that point. What is it about those challenges

and this sort of slow, monotonous nature of those challenges, or just the challenges themselves, or challenge as a construct itself that helped you to build confidence? Because one of the most frequent questions I'm asked in the comments section of this podcast or on Instagram or anywhere else is, how do I build my confidence?

And I think we live in a culture, especially on Instagram, where it seems like everyone else is super confident and chasing their dreams. And we never get to hear the whispers of their self-doubt. So it might feel like we're the only ones. So I guess my question is, how did those challenges build your confidence? It happened by accident.

So that's the first thing to say. I didn't chase it thinking this is going to help. It was like a slow series of blocks that were built. So it started when I failed my A-levels and I went off traveling. I went to Costa Rica, a place that I know you love. And I went to university out there. And I think it was spending time in a different country

with a different culture, different language, different religion, away from home, away from mom and dad. And first of all, I had to kind of think on my own. I couldn't defer to other people. Up until that point, I'd always kind of, dad, what do you think? Mum, what do you, should I do that? You know, I didn't trust my own judgment. So first of all, that was gone. So I had to stand or fall on my own decisions. And then secondly, just the immersion in this exciting new place was just, I mean, it just, it was the most exciting year I've ever had, if I'm to be really honest.

There's going to be so many Ben, 18-year-old Ben, Ben's listening to this right now, who have listened to this and thought, you know what, I'm really low confidence and I've been knocked and, you know, I'm not sure if I'm good enough and I've been called a failure by my job dad whatever it is what do you say to those people having walked you know live their life what you say to them what's the advice you give them don't don't buy into someone else's narrative that's what you're doing by listening to the failure whether it's absolute words coming out of someone's mouth saying well listening to the failure whether it's absolute words coming out of someone's mouth saying well you're no good whether it's whether it's even perceived narrative that you go into a pub and everyone looks like they're having more fun than you and and the girl

or the boy doesn't want to be with you they want to be with the the other person i think i think you just have to own your narrative you are you in this world of What are we 6.7 billion? I probably got that wrong. But in this world of many many billions of people There is no there is no other steven. Yeah, that is fact. Yeah, there might be someone similar There might be someone with the same abilities the same body type maybe even looks a bit like you, but you are completely unique because your personality belongs to you. And don't try and change that. Don't try and be the person that other people want you to be. Be the person you are. And it's a really hard thing to buy into because I spent so much of my life trying to be the person I thought society wanted

me to be. Always embarrassed that I wasn't, I was either too posh or I wasn't posh enough. I was either too successful or not successful enough. You see what I mean? It's almost like you're always just trying to fit in. But actually, once you own your narrative, once you're confident that you are unique in whatever way, it might be a geeky kind of unique, it might be a cool kind of unique, it might be a quirky kind of unique, but if you can own your personality, your narrative, and accept that, you're halfway there

to this self-belief and this confidence. And that also means not trying to buy into someone else's narrative. You might think you want to be the, if you're the geeky one, you might think you want to be the cool kid. You might think that you want to be playing in the first football team. You might think that you want to be sitting at that top table, but that's not necessarily where your personality wants you to be. And I think stop wanting and start being.