The Wellness Scoop - Jake Humphrey: intrusive thoughts, morning routine and the power of optimism

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

This week Ella is joined by Jake Humphrey. Jake is a sports presenter and co-host of The High Performance Podcast. In this incredibly vulnerable and inspiring conversation, Jake opens about his experience of struggling with his mental health, anxiety, and intrusive thoughts, all the while succeeding in his professional life; as well as the tools, self-care habits, and mindset shifts that helped him get to a happier and healthier place.   They discuss: Taking each day as it comes and releasing the expectation of being perfect Succeeding professionally while struggling internally The reality of Jake’s experience with anxiety and intrusive thoughts The power of the mind and how to reframe your thoughts to seek out opportunity and true happiness Jake’s key to success in his professional life and with overcoming his mental health challenges The fear of failure and getting out of the ‘comfy chair’ Finding purpose and committing to a life of constant growth The importance of a morning routine and Jake’s ‘daily basics’   Links: Jake’s book: High Performance: Lessons from the Best on Becoming the Best  The High Performance Podcast Use code podcast20 to GET 20% OFF the Feel Better App  Wellness Toolkit for this episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Welcome to Wellness with Ella, the Deliciously Ella podcast. This is a podcast that aims to inspire you, to empower you, to leave you feeling uplifted. And each week I want to share what wellness really looks like as we unpack the simple tools that have helped each one of our guests turn a negative into a positive and unlock true happiness and genuine health and by health I don't mean how they look I mean their energy their excitement their fulfillment the question is how can we all get more from life? And our guest today is Jake Humphrey. Jake presents the High Performance Podcast which I've listened to forever really and it's a podcast I so enjoy

and the reason I wanted to get Jake on the show as our first guest is to talk about that journey from feeling incredibly low and lost to fulfilled and optimistic. And I've heard Jake talk on his own show about his experience with his mental health. And I was so inspired by the way that he looked at it. He was incredibly open with me in this episode. And we talked a lot about his struggles with anxiety. Jake dealt with very intrusive thoughts for a number of years without actually telling anyone at all and on the outside he was this huge character with this huge career but on the other side of the camera he was dealing with something that made him really truly very afraid. I've got to say I'm so grateful

to Jake for being so honest and so vulnerable. I hope you enjoy it, I hope you take a lot from it and if you don't know Jake and don't listen to the high performance podcast, first of all, I think you'll love the show, but he's had a really long, illustrious career. He's an entrepreneur, TV presenter, presenting the premier in Champions Leagues for BT Sport. He's massively successful, but it's such an example of the fact

that success isn't always equaling happiness. And that's one of the big themes we'll be exploring over the next few weeks. So Jake, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. You're our first guest on this. Is that right? Yeah, in this new... I'm still honoured.

Well no, we're really honoured. We've, you know, spent the last five years interviewing all sorts of doctors and neuroscientists and psychologists and it's been amazing I've learned so so so much more taken so much of it into my own life but I think I feel so strongly that people are inspired by people and I think there's a moment almost where you kind of it's not that you stop learning but it's starting to look at actually how do you apply those learnings and what I really want to do in this season is start to show how do you actually apply all those different tools of the wellness industry to actually create a more meaningful happier healthier life and the reason I was really keen to get you here today is I've listened to so many of your podcasts and I re-listened this weekend to a lot of your own

personal kind of stories and your own episodes and I think that you talk about those challenges with your mental well-being in particular in such a vulnerable and candid way but also with such a frankness of how to move forward which I so appreciate and resonate with so I wonder before we kind of get started if you'd be happy to introduce yourself you know obviously from the outside we know you as very successful sports presenter podcast host but I wondered if you could introduce yourself kind of fully as you what would you like people to know about you yeah it's a really good question actually and you know you've definitely gone from the the other end of the spectrum if you've had neuroscientists and doctors to a former kids tv presenter right um but i suppose

the thing i always like to explain to people is that being a tv presenter whether it's a kids presenter an f1 presenter now a football presenter or a podcaster or a business owner or even a dad or a husband right those are all the things that i do they're not actually who i am and i think one of the real challenges that we all have in the modern world is that it is so rife with opinion you know there will either be people on this podcast who don't know who I am and therefore they're learning now while I'm talking or there will be people that do and I guarantee you they'll have an opinion and almost an expectation of what I'm going to talk about and one of the challenges I think with expectation is that when you go into a situation you constantly measure yourself against that.

Right. And, and it totally changes the experience. So if I have like an expectation of coming in and what this is going to be about, it actually isn't a very free conversation because I'm constantly thinking, well, is that what I thought?

Is that what, what did I prepare for and all that? So I'm just a kind of, I think I'm just a person that is constantly growing and changing. And I'm now 44 which you can probably tell by the wrinkles on the forehead and around the eyes man i keep looking in the mirror thinking who's the old guy looking back at me oh no but i feel i'm growing actually more than ever before and i'm a big fan of stoicism right and the stoics have a great phrase

which is the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is right now. And in some ways, I think that's quite a nice place to start for your listeners, because there will be people listening to this that feel that this sort of conversation about wellness isn't for them, or that maybe they haven't got the time for it, or maybe they're too old for it. But actually, like the second best time to do anything is this moment, right? And I think I learned that really probably when I hit my 40s, that I'd gone through the teenage years of not really knowing who I was and not doing much. Then actually, it was a real whirlwind in the 20s and 30s when I bagged the job on Kids' Telly and then Formula One with a lot of pressure. And I left to join BT Sport, which was equally a lot of pressure and I don't really think that I had much kind of like mental freedom in any of those things because I was constantly trying to be a TV

presenter now I'm just kind of me and in some ways what I love saying when I get asked this question is I'm just a totally flawed normal person who makes mistakes, has errors in him, falls short constantly, doesn't know the answer to very many things, definitely has imposter syndrome. But actually, that's what I am. And that's what you get all of that with me. And once you admit that to people, I think it's actually a really freeing experience for you and for them. Oh, 100%. And I so appreciate so appreciate that and don't want to sound like your number one groupie but i so appreciating what i was listening to you talking about the fact that we're not very honest you know we say we've removed a lot of the stigma

around conversations around mental health or physical health but actually when you say how are you or who are you to people? Actually, you end up still, it might be I'm struggling, but it's still relatively superficial. So I so appreciate the fact that because I'm sure a lot of people look up to you. Often when people are successful, we assume everyone's got everything sussed. And I think the fact that you're saying you are kind of flawed and deeply imperfect is, it's so refreshing. And I wonder kind of how are you today? How does I feel I feel yeah life actually feels really good at the moment it feels relentless I feel like I'm in that place where people just constantly say how are you and I'm like yeah busy and I have to probably address that at some point in 2023

but really good like I've got two amazing kids and an incredible wife and you know I do think if it all ended tomorrow I would be so happy with what I've done what I've experienced you know, I do think if it all ended tomorrow, I would be so happy with what I've done, what I've experienced. You know, I just think life is about experiences and doing fun things. And going back to stoicism again, I live with the phrase memento mori. It is like the thing I remind myself of daily. Memento mori basically means remember you're dying. Now you can look at that and think what a negative thing to remind yourself about every day but the truth about memento mori right is that we're all dying like the sad thing

is i can give everyone in this room a terminal diagnosis right now now i don't know how long you've got right days weeks hopefully many many years but you need to live with that mindset of memento mori that like if you go forwards to 100 years like your brand is amazing right in 100 years it may well not be here okay you definitely won't be here everyone you've ever worked with won't be here it's unlikely that you or my kids will even be here like that's only 100 years that is the blink of an eye and everything that we know is gone and i think if you can live with that mindset it is actually right really freeing you just kind of you don't care about stuff so much not in not in a way that

you just sit on the sofa and it crisps all day because you don't care but and it's in a kind of the small shit doesn't bother you anymore sort of way yeah no i totally agree i think it's so easy to get wrapped up in life life feels so busy and I know at the moment it can feel particularly hard for people and it's winter as well and it's dark and it's so easy to just be like in a few months when this happens I'll be happy as opposed to being like actually I appreciate what I have right now and I love this sense someone's talking about the other day that instead of saying I have to do this I have to do all these busy things in my life it's reframing it as I get to do it you know I get to wake up in the middle of the night with my kids

because how lucky am I to have them and it's and how are you yeah I'm I'm okay thank you I've been I've been a bit around the houses actually I've had a really good six months I've been on a bit of a kind of self-development journey revisiting some things I've not really ever visited a lot of kind of things from my childhood that I just wasn't really ready to do wasn't in a good enough place and it's been quite heavy but now so freeing I feel like someone took a lot of weights off which is amazing but yeah I've got a two-year-old and three-year-old and they've both been kind of like on and off poorly all weekend and you know what it's like when you're like no well and that's where I say no I get to parent them and it's and it's amazing you know i think one of the challenges that you've got is when you create a brand and a business and

a movement like you have there is a there is constant expectation of growth right it always has to be every year has to be bigger whether it's turnover or profit or product or impact or follower. It is unrelenting and it is exhausting. I think sometimes it's just good to remind yourself that life doesn't work like that. Even a flower takes three or four months a year off and just lays under the ground and goes dormant. And I used to really struggle with this. I was like constant, constant. And I used to struggle on holiday.

I'd go on holiday with my wife back when she was my girlfriend and after a day i'd be like harry i'm ready to go again i want to get home and get on with it and i remember dad actually he's a wise guy he said to me another way of framing the word recreation is recreation and you you have to remind yourself that you can't go 100 miles an hour every day beast mode all the time. It's unhealthy for you. It doesn't allow you to stop at any point and assess where you've been and where you're going to. But it's hard because you particularly are in a world where that's how you're measured.

So the challenge for you all the time is how do I not judge myself in the way that the whole rest of the world judges me? But the truth is that everyone has this like doesn't matter what their job or their business where they're at i feel that everyone is existing in this place where like because now all you see right is perfection you see perfection everywhere you look because all people put on social media is the end game like the complete article so it's very difficult for you to constantly like see perfection and not want it. This is not you. This is for everybody. And I saw a brilliant video the other day of an old guy and he was saying the problem with the world is not greed. The problem with the world is envy. We're

not greedy for more. We're envious because we see more. And he's saying that, you know, a hundred years ago when we all had less, we were actually happier because it wasn't shoved down our throats. Like you didn't know before social media what your other rivals were really doing you didn't know where your mates were going on holiday you know i've just come off the tube here and there's that amazing setup down the road from you that building with all the huge screens and i got off the tube and saw it and i was like that's cool but every single person is on their phone filming this and it's, have you not experienced this? Unless you've either filmed it or sent it to your mates or put it on your Instagram or whatever.

So this is a real global health challenge for our kids to be dealing with, actually. This constant comparison with other people. But it's more, I completely agree. But I think it's the constant comparison, but it's also the idea. And this is one of the reasons that I it's also the idea and this is one that reasons that i wanted to be having conversations like this is that i i really don't believe there is a finished article to your point at the beginning there because i think that looking after your total well-being is a kind of daily piece of work to an extent and i think this idea that you could do a bit of work

you could do some meditation or you could do some manifesting or you could change your diet you could do this dark you know this kind of plan for six weeks it's just not how it works like ultimately no one is perfect there is no kind of one route to perfection and then you're just finished and it's a tick box exercise and I think it's such an important conversation to have because I think you can easily look at people and be like right they've done it yeah and I don't think anyone has ever done it I think you can get better at it but I don't think it's as simple as it can feel on Instagram and I guess what I'm really interested in exploring is kind of what the catalyst moment is in a lot of people's lives to start to really change the way that they're living or framing the world or thinking about the world. And I know you've been kind of quite honest about your journey there. And I wondered if we could,

yeah, go back to the sort of early 2000s when you were potentially kind of in a darker period of your life and the impact that had on you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I'll happily talk about it because the reason why I want to talk about this is because I don't know whether one of my kids or your kids or someone else's kids or even someone listening to this is having the same thing. And there's a reason why suicide is the biggest killer of young men. And it's because they don't talk to someone. So basically what I had was like really intrusive thoughts where I just thought I was going to do something horrendous or something horrendous was going to happen. Now it's very easy now in hindsight to sit here 20 years later and go why were you worried that you were just going to do something crazy like why would you think that but when you're in the moment and you don't have the anyone around you saying this

is just like your brain playing a trick on you and you're choosing to believe the trick it feels real i mean it feels real it feels really really scary and i think it's worth remembering that you know we're talking about like just to paint the picture for your listeners this is 2001 when i've just landed a job as one of the newest presenters on the cbbc channel children's bbc at the time and i I could almost remember the moment that it kind of happened which is a weird thing to even say in itself because when you talk about mental health you don't normally think of it as a moment do you know what I mean it's often like a slow decline but for me it absolutely was not that so had you ever struggled with your mental health prior to this moment no no I like life wasn't great like for me as a young guy i had an amazing family very loving

really normal simple norfolk countryside upbringing but i was i didn't excel in any way i wasn't in any of the sports teams at school i was never in the school plays or the school choir i didn't get great grades got fired from mcdonald's as a teenager for lack of communication skills. Which feels just so ironic. I know. Weird, right? Then I failed my A-levels. But this was kind of like, in some ways, I remember failing my A-levels and just, I think it was my sister just said, oh, you've done it again. But that was the kind of feeling really was just like,

it wasn't like, oh, I'm this amazing guy that's had this bad moment. That was just kind of like par for the course for me, really. i went back to school to redo my a-levels had to return to school to redo them and it was on the day that i went back that there was a letter from a teacher who'd been written to by a local tv company saying do any of your students studying politics want to come on a tv show and talk about politics which i then went and met them and said i've failed my a-levels my mates have gone off abroad or they've gone to university i'm like the black sheep of the family i've messed up can i come and work with you that led to work experience which led to the offer of a job which led to children's bbc and i remember my mom and dad dropping me off in london

the day that i went down to london and as they drove off I'd never left home I'd never even lived outside Norfolk I'd spent a few days outside but not much and as they went away I just burst into tears like real proper you know that like ugly crying that you do where you just cannot help it and I thought that was kind of weird and then it was only a few days later that I was going with my wife to Paris for a weekend break, and I still remember it as clear as day. I was on an escalator going down the Canary Wharf tube station, and it was like a really busy station,

and this voice in my head was just like, what if you went on a rampage and did something crazy in this station? And instead of me going, that's what people have these thoughts, right? Like when you're driving your car and you think, what if I just steered into another car into the central reservation? You just dismiss it as a nothing thought.

My brain didn't dismiss it. It went, oh, why have you thought that? And then it just led to this buildup of intrusive thoughts that, and the sad thing is on average, it takes men about 10 years to reach out for help whenever mental health problem like that's 10 wasted years so i didn't actually mention this to anyone i just thought i mean i genuinely thought i can't believe it this is it this is the end like somehow this is just going to end badly and i thought i mean i remember thinking to myself i could hire like a bodyguard to live with me and keep an army all the time.

Ridiculous. Shows you how you can be affected, though. Maybe I could cut my hands off so that I can't do anything crazy. All these ridiculous thoughts. Then that makes you feel even worse. Then at the same time, you try to have a smile on your face and host kids' telly. And then that feels like even more of a charade because you're putting on this smiley face and entertaining the nation it's it just felt so real so scary so inevitable and because it was a long time ago there wasn't really much opportunity for

help in those days not really you know and in the end i actually rang an 0898 number in the back of like a daily newspaper like a national paper and spoke to someone i explained this and this person that was the first moment of a chink of light where this person went listen if you're ringing me worrying about this you're not the sort of person that does these things you know you need to calm down and understand that young men particularly have these kind of existential periods it's called pure oh if anyone's listened to this and thinks, what is, you know, I feel maybe I'm in this or I don't understand it. Pure O is the theory of sort of invasive thoughts

that you can't control, right? And you can't control them because you believe them. So he was the first person that said this, I promise you, this is a nonsense. You need to tell someone. But then that's a big deal, right? And my wife, as she was there my girlfriend she was amazing we just sat there one day and she definitely noticed i was getting thinner i used

to like my side of the bed would be wet with sweat at night i used to dread night time because that was like i would just be awake all night worrying about myself and sometimes she'd roll over and go whoa what the you know like literally soaking wet and i'll be like no i don't know what that is i don't know just dismiss it and brush it off so then i explained to her i said for months i've had this fear and these mad thoughts and she just looked at me and said you you're the guy i love you're not going to do anything like that like and i said to her like are you not at all worried that I've just said that she said no like not even remotely and that was then another massive oh what a lift and then eventually went to therapy

recommended by someone because I'd start to talk about it then and this woman was again amazing and just said your brain playing a trick most men don't talk and that's why a lot of them end up dead so it's so good that you're talking and i think my issue now with mental health is things have moved on massively but i think people skirt around it still like even now it feels nerve-wracking to say oh i just thought i genuinely thought i was going to do something crazy because you worry people will listen to it and go oh maybe he is like what so we have to talk about it in that way rather than the coded way which is i'm struggling a bit oh yeah i'm not great or even worse yeah life's fine i suppose or just not mentioning it at all but it was a it was a very very challenging period but now i now i say 40

44 years old like you know over 20 years later and honestly Ella I am glad that I went through that you know I just think it uh I think it almost makes you feel like if you if that can come your way and you can cope with it then you can cope with so much and I think often as human beings we underestimate our resilience for dealing with the stuff oh i completely i completely agree with that i think if you can somehow turn a very very difficult experience into something that has a positive end to it that there's something extraordinarily empowering about that and i've certainly found that in my life how long how long did that kind of period last for you? I think probably it lasted three or four years, I reckon. The challenge is now, like, even now I sit here and feel like a slight fraud when I talk about it, because actually if you take a 44-year-old and they've had four years of struggle,

like, that's 10% of my life that I've had this for. So in some ways I feel like a fraud when I say I've had mental mental health challenges right because but I think that's an important conversation to have as well like I love the phrase nothing lasts forever right and that that was proven in that period when I was not that great and I'm now really happy but I think it's an important thing for everyone to understand that nothing lasts forever because I think it equips you for any eventuality so you know like you see it now you've just done a bit of work on yourself your business is flying you've got amazing staff all around you you've got two wonderful kids a brilliant husband you've got your health like wonderful right it's really important that you

recognize that none of that lasts forever but at the same time if people are listening to this and they are struggling and they're perhaps in a place that i was 20 years ago and they don't see a way out i would also like to remind them that nothing lasts forever it's a i think it's one of the most powerful things that you can remember completely and i think when you are in a very difficult place you know you say four years isn't that long but when you're in those four years, it can feel like a very, very long time. And I really, one of the reasons I really want to talk to you is that I so appreciate the way that you say. And I hadn't really thought about it like this until I heard you talking about it. The fact that, yes, we've removed some stigma around mental health.

And that's amazing. And same with physical health. But only to an extent. And as you said, we're now able to say, yeah, I've been having a bit of a hard time with my mental health and know that that will, for the most part, be very kind of warmly received and accepted by people. And people will say, I'm very sorry to hear that.

But actually, the reality of what that looks like, I think we are still quite bad at talking about. I think it's important we make no bones about this, right? I got in the car the other day and I had a radio dj go why does everyone seem to have a mental health problem these days every celebrity that i ever hear wants to share the story of their mental health why are we so unresilient why are we all so weak what's and it's like no hold on this isn't i think the other thing that i really want to say is this is a natural part of life. Like, have you ever not had a physical injury? No. Have you told people about it? Yes. Does anyone go, oh, why does everyone seem to have pulled muscles these days? Of course they don't,

because it's like, this is the norm. Like we all accept that we get pulled muscles or we go in the gym and hurt our shoulder. Or like we have a period where we've got a bad knee and we can't play football or hockey or whatever it is. let's have this idea that it's totally normal to struggle with our mental health right and that's the whole point isn't it it's like our well-being is an a linear path for anybody you know and there's going to be certain bumps and blocks in the road whether that's facets of your mental health physical health grief and so on to your whole point at the beginning like none of us know what life has in store and so my what i feel very passionate about is that as i said you can kind of theorize well-being until the cows come home but you've got to start to look at how do you actually start to apply these tools whether that's things you learn

in therapy or kind of different facets of self-care into your life because these difficult periods do come whether they're to you or to somebody close to you and it's actually what are the best ways to get through that and and I had very intrusive thoughts actually after my first daughter was born and I never talked about it I would say yeah you know it's quite hard or yeah I feel quite overwhelmed but I was very embarrassed because i just to your point i thought people would think i was really crazy or that i wouldn't and even now would you ever tell people what those thoughts actually were yeah would you just call them intrusive thoughts yeah i mean i would now would but i think it took me quite a long time to feel really comfortable

that i was just absolutely actually i'll tell you something interesting on this I was absolutely fascinated and paranoid about just all dangers and so I was absolutely terrified every time I walked down the stairs I was terrified I would drop her or I was in the bath I was going to drop her and she would drown or I was standing at a red light with the pram and I would let go of the pram to oncoming traffic and to your point about what you were saying I didn't want to do any of those things that never crossed my mind but i was so conscious about what would happen if i did and we were having this conversation in the office earlier today and four people said that's how i feel every time i'm in a tube station but we never talk about it right and i wonder how many people

listening and one of my colleagues was saying you know i always stand at the back because i'm nervous what happens if someone pushes me you know we look at that oncoming tube coming really really fast and we all have these flashes of thoughts and we think oh am i a bit crazy and i think it's to your point it's not that we need to kind of like really delve into that means every day I'm having a mental health crisis I think it's just normalizing yeah kind of the fact that our brains can be quite messy our lives can be quite messy you know I know when I was kind of had all my challenges with my physical health 10 years ago I felt my mental health was so much worse because I wouldn't talk about my physical health with people because I was embarrassed and I think that's still the case for so many people now you

know often I'll go to a wedding or a party and someone's quite drunk and they'll come and tell me all about all the problems they're having stomach problems whatever else and they're like I don't want to talk to anyone about it but because I've shared quite openly my story they're really comfortable telling me and I think it's just this normalization of the fact that we all have these challenges and and how do we go through them and I guess that's why I'm really curious from you kind of were there any tools that you started to put in place or ways of taking care of yourself or thinking about your mindset or reframing situations that this kind of difficult period taught you that have made a really

fundamental difference over the last 20 years yeah I mean the biggest one is when i was told this is your brain playing a trick and then you see this all the time you know my wife won't mind me saying on here that like she gets pretty anxious she you know i wouldn't say she has mental health challenges but like a lot of people you know she's a busy mom of two kids and there's a lot going on in her life and she does have like these irrational fears and you know like a few little phobias right and i now just say to her listen this is just your brain playing a trick and then you're choosing to believe that trick which is exactly what i was told you know you can write any story and actually it's a great reminder of the power of thought like if you

can if i or you can write one of those tricks and then believe it to such an extent that in my case, it damaged my mental health for four years, let's totally reverse that and say, if I truly believe that great stuff can happen and I'm expecting it at any moment, then imagine the possibilities on the other side. And I think that people who live a great life and achieve great things and find real happiness,

they've managed to unlock that trick, which is almost like being a gambler. They're just constantly gambling that every day an amazing opportunity will come. They gamble that every person they meet could be the game changer for them. They gamble that every time they invest in a business or something, it's going to go well. They gamble that every time they go in a business or something it's going to go well they gamble that every time they go for a job interview it's going to be the job interview that changes their life now the reason why those people find that things are so brilliant and successful for them is because they're expecting the good stuff so they're expecting the optimistic outcome therefore they spot the opportunity and they are only really sort of attracted to people who are similar to them i think it's a really powerful mindset to have that feeling that something great is going

to happen now i totally get that people might listen to this and go yeah but that's not going to actually change what happens but i think it gets you much closer to it happening like absolutely believe just totally believe that you are deserving of great stuff and great stuff is going to happen your way. To the point where just be an actor or an actress. And imagine you're playing the role of someone who just believes that something amazing is going to happen this week. Wake up tomorrow and play that role for one week and just see what happens. Just enter every situation in your life with that belief that the amazing thing you want is going to come.

And just see how negative people melt away because they feel a bit threatened how other really positive people come your way and suddenly they want to talk to you but also how you suddenly notice opportunity and I think that there's no greater example of what the human mind can do than negative or positive thinking so that was a real big one for me and did you always have that mindset no I didn't no that was definitely something that that I picked up in that period it's which is an interesting question because like why why was I the guy that went to this tv channel and said give me an opportunity why was I the guy that created a show reel and sent it around to everyone why was

I the guy that kept going for auditions on TV shows I loved, despite not getting the job? So I've got a great big stack of rejection letters at home. Why was I the guy that went for an interview and auditioned for CBBC and got it? Why was I the guy that put himself forwards for being an F1 presenter? I mean, I had a meeting with BBC Sport a year before I got the F1 job. And I kind of told them my story of A-level failure, McDonald's sacking, not going to uni and I was told BBC sport don't employ people like you and I was like wow okay so I had to find another

way to find that job on Formula One and I actually just went to the head of football and I just said I've been told that you don't employ people like me and I think what they meant was you're not a journalist and you're not an ex-sports person you know you're a that morning i was dressed up as a lobster running around the blue peter garden popping balloons of foam right i kind of get where they're coming from but why was i the guy that then tried to find another way to get that job and i ended up just taking an isdn kit and going around and doing reports from various football matches and then why was i the guy that backed himself to to carry the bbc's formula One program as a sort of 29-year-old that had never hosted live sport before in his life? I think the answer is that I did have an optimism, but I just didn't realize I had.

I don't know whether I had a self-belief. I think maybe that comes later. Like, I love the phrase, success leaves clues. So I think talking about self-beliefief if someone hasn't tasted or felt it is is a tricky one but i think optimism is something that anyone in any situation can have and you know there was nothing special about me i came from nowhere special i had no special knowledge or any special skills and really that's why i wanted to create the high performance podcast to let people know that there is no secret optimism

actually probably is the secret when you break it all down is there anything more important or empowering than optimism so that was a really key thing and i think the final thing i learned in that period was just a real understanding that you know life is a bit like a you know like an egg timer yeah where all the sand at the bottom has gone so there's no point thinking about that the stuff above isn't yours because you don't have it yet you don't know how much sand is up there you don't know what it holds what's the point allowing yourself to go there you get one part of life right which is that one grain of sand right in the middle of that egg timer that's the only bit you've got so if you can't approach that with optimism and we'll probably come on to talking

about this what we call on the podcast world-class basics just making good daily decisions if you can't approach life with optimism and making good decisions then there's something wrong because i believe anyone can do that and with your your, and by the way, I totally believe that optimism builds because I was not an optimist in any shape or form. And when I met my husband, it was like someone had put a really horrible mirror in front of me. I mean, we met, we moved in together a week later, like there was this very strange soul connection,

whatever you want to call it. But it was very clear that I was actually really not that happy and was really, really struggling. And in seeing him and his family, it kind of shone a lot of lights for me. And I realized I was actually really not a happy person. And I really was quite pessimistic. And I really worked so hard on becoming an optimist and i used to write down things i was grateful for every day and i would do that exercise every day and it just became easier and easier and easier and easier and kind of eight years later my natural disposition

is defined all the reasons why today was great and it's god has been so worthwhile but i do i do think you can change you know and everything i've ever read about kind of neuroscience and neuroplasticity definitely confirms that you can change it i think it's a habit you just got to keep what i was going to say you've just got to keep working on it which is something else i want to ask you about especially in self-belief and you talk about this idea of not sitting in the comfy chair and i i've become quite kind of convicted and just you know kind of bear with me because it sounds quite depressing but that happiness and particularly your mental well-being but your whole well-being because I think that there's no real distinction between your mental well-being

and your physical well-being because the better you feel in your mind the more you want to take care of your body I really think that it's a daily discipline for so many of us and it comes from continuously showing up and working on those aspects and I'm really curious you were saying with self-belief you didn't have as much of it potentially when you started kind of how you fostered that to keep putting yourself out there because I think that's one of the things that really holds us back from our lives we kind of potentially know what we want or what our values are and what's misaligned with the way we're living but going out and actually doing that putting yourself out there is terrifying.

We're all kind of inherently probably a bit nervous of rejection and failure. And also this inherent need to actually get out of the chair and realize when we do need to do that and put ourselves out there. What's the worst that can happen? You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself Thank you. your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's b-o-b at l-i-b-s-y-n.com.

What is the worst that could happen? If you are the sort of person that doesn't dare do it for whatever reason, I would just encourage you to write down the single worst thing that can happen if you put yourself out there and then ask yourself if you can deal with it. It seems so simple, but it holds so many people back. The fear of the unknown, actually, when you break it down and there is no fear of the unknown, you make it the fear of the known, right? These are the things that will happen if I put myself out there and I fail. And probably most of them don't actually matter i would be amazed staggered if people couldn't cope with all of them almost all of them in truth you know because these are things that you want to do so i

think there's a few things that sort of spring to mind like the first thing is why are you putting yourself out there right i think it's really important to listen to a sense of envy. That thing that I said earlier about people aren't greedy, they're envious. People are envious, I think, of other people. That's what goes on in this world. But I like the idea of envy. So ask yourself, if you really want to do something and you're envious of someone or something, ask yourself why. Well, the answer will be because

you want it that's great that is a north star for your life that is a kind of a real marker that you have to listen to and go i feel a sense of envy about that so therefore i'm going to chase it right so that's the first thing you have to you have to allow yourself to want great things okay the second thing is a mindset that you deserve to have great things i think everybody deserves happiness and success and positivity and great people around them like life is gonna slap you across the face and kick you in the nuts at any given moment so please don't do it to yourself because there's enough of that already you know you need to be nicer to yourself than anyone else i mean sometimes i say to harriet my wife like she'll pick up the phone

and she'll go hi yeah i'm just wondering if you have a table spare for lunch today okay no no problem yeah okay all right thank you and there's no problem thank you thank you bye no table but i think that you know you told me too late that there wouldn't be a table like and i'm like hold on you just spoken nicer to a person you'll never meet in your life than how you spoke to me straight after i love your husband but i'm the same i'm just as bad you know i think we all do that so i think we have to remember that you talk to yourself in the way that you would put on your very best phone voice or the way that you would speak to the king of england or whatever like you're really precious and special so it's very important that you feel a sense of envy but then you're good to yourself

and make yourself believe that you can get it. And I think the final salient point about this is, why do people not do this stuff? Well, almost every time they don't do it, it's because they have a fear of failure. I was joined on my podcast by a guy called Greg Hoffman, the chief marketing officer of Nike. And he said, failure is the price of ambition.

And that is a quote that just stung me with yes it is and I would just say to everyone listening to this brilliant podcast of yours seek failure seek failure every single day realize that failure is where growth is and reframe your mind about failure when you're in the gym and someone says, lift that weight to failure, you don't go, I can't lift that to failure because I don't want to fail. Well, you know in your head, if you lift a weight to failure, what happens next time you go to the gym?

You lift stronger, you lift heavier, you lift for longer. Let's take football training. Is it football training or is it football failing? The best footballers in the world take 50 free kicks at the end of training and they might miss 40 of them. But when it comes to the match, they score that free kick because they've done not the practice

not the training they've done the failing so seek failure all the time if you listen to this and you're like i haven't failed for a long time then that's not great you need to exist in a place where failure is almost inevitable because the failure is where the growth is, is a really, really important thing for people to understand. And I actually think that when we talk about purpose, life is not about achieving those great moments. Johnny Wilkinson told me that after 20 years of hard graft,

he was thrilled for 30 seconds when he won the Rugby World Cup, right? Is that climb worth that view? I would argue not an incredible achievement but the joy lasted for 30 seconds i think this is an important one for people to understand happiness in life i don't believe comes from achieving stuff doesn't come from growing your business doesn't come from what's the turnover doesn't come from how big is my house how new is my car how impressive is my job title how large is my salary those things are all nice

right but they are not what happens lies happiness actually lies in pushing through the negative stuff in getting past the hard bits in growing in thinking I can't get there and realizing that you did get there and I think it's an important mindset because I think we live in a world of delayed happiness where everyone is thinking happiness is around the corner and they're going to be happy when they get all of those trappings that modern life tells you you need. But then you get to the end and you realize you were on this more what they call the hedonic treadmill. You're on this treadmill thinking you're going to get this hedonistic, magical moment at the end of it.

And what I would just say is please don't live your life waiting for that moment, thinking it's going to bring you happiness. And as you breathe out your last breath, looking back and realizing that it was the moments that the happiness was there. It wasn't reaching a moment like this is it right me and you having a conversation here this is what this podcast is about if 15 million people listen to your podcast lovely there's no happiness in that this is the happiness this like connection this great conversation this is what you have to be grateful for but also i think that and and i resonate with it so much but I think the thing is is that there is no end goal you know it's like ultimately and I think we can all be

guilty of this myself very much included but I've been very much kind of checking in on it particularly this year is that you can always play there like once I've got to this point everything's going to be so easy and we've certainly played that with kind of getting the business, you know, off the ground and to this point, which is like, cool, once this problem's sorted, it's going to be great. Once we get this listing, it's going to be great. Once we just get this manufacturing challenge sorted, whatever it is, you know, and I had this moment a few months ago where I was like, you know, we set out, we launched our first products, yes, six years ago now to build build to see if we could build you know we said this experiment we're going to build an all-natural plant-based food products

business not really been done before can we do it i said to my husband i was like i actually think we've done it and i don't think we've appreciated that i was like you know we're now you know we've got all the listings we set out to do we've got these amazing kind of sales points about how we're outselling all these brands that never in a million years did we even wonder if we could compete against and yet we're still looking at what's next and it's kind of like at what point are you actually enjoying it and saying like wow i tried to do that and i've done it and that is so cool as opposed to you know yeah what the next slog is and i do there is something interesting here though right because obviously i spend a lot of my time around sports people and whenever i talk

to retired footballers about this they almost to a man and woman will say to me i didn't enjoy it because i was just like as soon as we won a game it was about winning two in a row if it was a title it was about defending the title if it was one premier league i wanted two you know let's take formula one as a good example lewis hamilton no doubt won his first race and thought i want a title and then when he won his first title he thought well i want to equal michael schumacher he's now equal michael schumacher with seven titles now he will absolutely want eight titles now how crazy are our brains that i can almost guarantee you what lewis hamilton's thinking about is eight titles not thinking wow i've won seven titles

but here's the thing if you didn't think like you do and if they didn't think like they did i do question whether you would have the same success i don't i don't think it's an especially healthy or brilliant way to live right because i don't think you appreciate what happens you don't think it's an especially healthy or brilliant way to live, right? Because I don't think you appreciate what happens. You don't see the growth. And it's sad to go, oh my goodness, we've done it. And it's kind of happened almost without us really enjoying it. That's the truth, right? Like if I said to you, right at the beginning when you were bringing out your first product,

or now, which is easier? Oh, hard question. They're kind of equal, which i don't think was the answer you were looking for it's fine but here's the thing you would imagine that it's an awful lot easier when you've got 25 how many staff do you have yeah almost 50 right 50 staff lovely office you know no doubt you're now financially secure of course it's easier no it isn't it's as hard now as it was when it was you and your husband with all those dreams and all that grafting which gave you more pleasure that first product or the latest product you just brought out yeah it's true it's the first product yeah now that is mad insane your first product gave you more joy than all of the amazing stuff you've achieved since then so it can't be about the end

goal it can't be about the products it has to be about the process it can't be about the outcome and that's been our kind of big focus now it's like you've just got to see every day it's an adventure you know you could sit here today and be like oh i'm quite nervous about this interview or quite nervous about this new premise or i'm quite nervous about this new launch or you could say to your point you've not really got anything to lose let's just enjoy it and let's see what happens and again that mindset shift has been so so so so huge for me particularly in enjoying it and also realizing like to your point like what's the worst that can happen take more time do you think about infinite purpose ever do you know so infinite purpose is like you still need to have a purpose

right because i think living a purpose-driven life is a really good way to operate the challenge is how you how you frame that okay so and this can really apply to anything let's take new year's resolutions if i decide i want to get a six-pack right by march which i have been promising my wife for 20 years so any other iso products you've got that guarantee six packs i'll take that you either get to march and you haven't got a six pack right and you go bloody hell i'm a failure or you get to march and you've got a six pack and you go yes i've managed it i've got the six pack well there's the same result for both of those things you lose motivation you either lose motivation because you don't get it or you lose motivation because you achieve it now let's say you know if you set certain financial results for your business, right?

You either don't get there and you feel like you failed or you surpass it. And you think, why did I set such low target? What if I had set a much bigger target? So I would encourage people to set a challenge for themselves and have a purpose, but make it infinite. So when I first started high performance, I was like, I want 100,000 downloads of the podcast a week, then I'm happy. Well, we now have 500,000 a week. So where's that goal?

The infinite purpose of high performance is to inspire more people every day to get closer to their own version of high performance. We can always reach more people because there's billions in the world and we can always get them closer to high performance you never actually get there so i would encourage everyone including you and you can have loads of different infinite purposes the one for you personally the one as a parent the one as a business owner the one as a

friend the one as a partner infinite purpose it has no end but it's always there as a kind of a north star pushing you forwards yeah no and i feel very lucky because i think i have that in build very deeply in me which is the whole premise of why we do what we do and why we keep doing what we do which is that i felt so passionately on day one which is that i never wanted anyone to go through from a kind of health perspective what i'd been through and if i could help one person climb out of that then it was a win and to your point like I don't really care if it's a million people or if it's two people that's never maybe almost from a kind of career business perspective to my detriment I really don't care the more the merrier but it's not why I do what we do if we got to talk to three people I'd be really happy

if I felt those three people had had an impact but I'm very interested in in the kind of definition of high performance and how as you said everyone's going to have their own version of it and I think that's so important you know we're not having this conversation or you're not having the conversations you're having to try and make people believe that perfect exists they've got to emulate someone else but how do you start to understand what your version of high performance is how do you define it understand what your version of high performance is how do you define it so mine has changed massively since i've been doing the podcast like the seeds of this podcast i guess were sown when i ended up in formula one so i grew up in

this village thinking that there was successful people who had amazing lives and then there was people like me who you know just like keyed in a village right you know growing up probably going to get a job locally i thought there was a secret and it's only when you know i would say a large chunk of fate and luck and i think when people are successful they don't talk often enough about luck and i think that can be a really alienating factor for people who haven't got there yet they think well they've done all you know what about people that are just constantly grafting and working hard and giving it their all and it's not happening you know let's not discount how lucky i was right time right place is a powerful thing i was lucky that i failed my a levels and that led directly to the opportunity and tell you now there's obviously a whole other

conversation about then you have to make the most of those opportunities which we've spoken about the optimistic mindset the belief that good things are going to happen the hard work but i think that when when i finally ended up in formula one i would say to people like how did you become a ceo or a billionaire or a team principal or a formula one driver or whatever because it was the first time in my life i'd been in this kind of exotic world a long way away from a small village in norfolk and all of them would talk about hard work and resilience and self-belief and the ability to get knocked down and get back up and finding failure and all these other things so I really wanted to share that because I was still surrounded in my world by the people I grew

up with saying well my life's not going to be successful because those are the cards I've been dealt right at the beginning and I'd suddenly been opened up to this growth mindset that I wanted to share. The problem is you have to pick the right time to do that. So I then had that job in FYI. I had to just make that successful because I just bought a house. I had to make sure I pay my mortgage. I was like signing one year contracts. The pressure was there all the time just to deliver.

So I had to put this desire on the back burner. and then the don't sit in the comfy chair advice I was given by my first boss led to me walking away from the BBC which people at the time thought was crazy I was offered a four-year contract to host Formula One, Match of the Day 2, World Cups, Olympics, Euros, Commonwealth Games and Sports Personality of the year that's like the golden offer for a sports presenter but i kind of it for me it represented four years of doing exactly what i just done how interesting to explore what it'd be like to help set up a whole new channel so i left to join bt sport but then bt had spent hundreds of millions of pounds on the rights something like 600 million and I remember about a week before the channel launched, my new boss said,

are you happy that 600 million pounds worth of TV rights resting on your shoulders? I was like, well, I was fine until just now when you said that. So again, it wasn't the right time to have this conversation about, you know, sharing this growth mindset with people. And actually it's only now that I'm 44 that you think of that egg timer. And more than ever before, I have absolutely no idea how much sand is in the top, right? How much, how many grains am I going to get? I don't know.

So I wanted to share this. Plus I'm now a dad. I wanted to have conversations my kids could hear long after I've gone and be inspired by. And so I started thinking I can't wait for people to hear about this hard work and this graft and getting knocked down and getting back up and getting kicked mud kicked in your face and wiping off and keeping on walking forwards in a way a more superficial view of success that's what I thought it was but then when you start having these conversations

you actually realize that that is of course like that is part of the story and it's fine to be like that and to do that but you can only do it if it makes you happy and this is a really long-winded way of saying that my definition of high performance has completely turned on its head my definition of high performance can only be happiness because I see really successful, really high achieving people who are deeply unhappy. I speak to the highest achieving sports people on the planet who are currently competing and are deeply unhappy. I speak to people who have come to the end of their careers, didn't enjoy any of it, now feel lost, no longer have a purpose and they're deeply unhappy. I speak to people for whom all of their self-worth

is tied up in what they do and as soon as that melts away then they feel they are nothing and have nothing and they are deeply unhappy. So the only definition of high performance for me now is happiness. It's the only thing it can be doing the things that make you happy finding happiness in any given situation and they're their kind of tools that you implement every day to help support that happiness yes definitely so i talk about world-class basics because i also want people to understand that I think sometimes the name high performance can be a bit alienating people look at it and go well I can't reach high performance but it's about your own version of high performance so it's all about world-class basics like for me it is getting out

of bed before any other member of my family is up and that I can't tell you how powerful that half an hour is I'm the same it's amazing isn't it and I know that half an hour is. I'm the same. It's amazing, isn't it? And I know that like people will be listening to this going, don't be a dick. You've got two kids and like you juggle three or four different jobs. You live in the country and spend your life traveling into London. I'm not getting up half an hour earlier, but it's not half an hour less sleep.

It's like half an hour, not just half an hour more of life, but it's almost the most important half an hour and i don't want that to sound bad that i'm on my own and my kids and my my wife are not up but if i can get up at that time make a list of all the things on my mind the things i want to achieve that day and that week light a candle say hey siri bbc radio 3, let the dog out, drink an Athletic Greens before anything else goes in my body, then I'm happy. That is my way, that's the way that I start my day every day. And then after that, it's about,

you know there's this great thing that a lot of psychologists talk about, which is looking at your day like a diamond necklace, right? And at the beginning of every day, there's no diamonds on that necklace, and your job is to put the diamonds on so i remember watching frozen with my kids and i think it was olaf or someone who said just do the next right thing right that's trite and it's a disney film but that's all you can do like i believe that high performance do the best you can where you are with what you've got if that's all you do the best you can, where you are with what you've got. If that's all you do, the best you can, where you are with what you've got, no one can ask for more than that from you,

because you can't do any more than the best you can. You can't do it anywhere other than where you are right now. And you can't do it with the knowledge that you don't already have. So we have to get rid of this mindset of like criticizing people for changing their mind or making what they call a U-turn. You just't have the knowledge and then you grow because you get the knowledge so you change your mind and you believe something like you and i are different people now right the two people that started this conversation that sort of constant growth so i think it's really important that you just keep on putting those diamonds on that necklace throughout the day every single decision should i eat this how should i speak to my wife or my children should I take a moment when I'm getting wound up and just breathe should I get up early at the beginning of the day should I believe

that great things are going to happen to me should I realize that the way that I react to other people is entirely on me should I have a mindset that if I'd have lived the life they've lived I would act exactly the same as them so putting empathy at the absolute heart of the way that I operate and the way that I think. Should I go to bed early or should I stay up and watch a film? You know, you can stay up and watch a film, but you'll pay the price the next day. So yes, it's about discipline. I think discipline is really powerful. And it's about realising that you deserve this sort of stuff. I think sometimes I speak to people and they're like, oh no, I don't need to do that.

And I know the truth is that I don't think that they feel they deserve it. But I always say to them, so you have such a big ego, you believe you're so perfect that there's nothing you can do to improve your day or improve your life. And I think if everyone just wrote down

the way they live their day at the moment and asked, is that a world-class decision that i made at that point then i think they would find a lot of areas that they can improve and it's not big stuff it's the small little simple things that we can all improve on that i think will get people closer to their own version of high performance so those are my kind of daily basics and other than that it is living in the country and spending time with my kids but that's a very conscious choice because i'm sure you could have done more and more and more and it's a very conscious choice to say that's what actually to your point is my definition of high performance which is happiness which is that shift in mindset that real focus on creating a positive mindset

part of which is not potentially doing another wrong in your successful career but maybe taking one step back potentially to take a step forward but to have that time with your children and I think that's a really powerful thing to say because I think we're often quite scared of as a culture not taking opportunities so my thing with the kids is it's a non-negotiable for me that I will try and always sleep at home so I'll do a job that takes me around loads of different cities I'll often finish work you know in Manchester at half 11 at night and Norwich is a good four or five hours from there but I would rather do the journey or wake up at home have that time with the kids so me and my son every single morning we've got a tiny

like inflatable football that can't damage stuff he's seven years old and we play first to 20 every morning without fail that period with Sebastian that lasts about 10 minutes is absolute gold for me my daughter is like a born performer so she's doing drama art dance singing lessons she's doing her lambda you know the London Academy of Music and I don't think I've missed a performance yet so those things are really like those are non-negotiables for me that I want my children to see that dad always woke up in the house always did the school run with them I might go back to bed by the way after the school run I'm a big believer in power napping because I just find it helps me and that's not for everyone but for me up 20 minutes you know late morning lunchtime is like golden if I can grab it so I'd

rather work super late get home be with them grab a power nap but it breaks my heart to think that my daughter would ever look up and see that I'm not at her dance or drama and the opportunity I know isn't there for everyone but if you can make it work in your life if you can have those conversations with your colleagues or your boss and say look I'm gonna do the work you know I don't think there are many people that work much harder than me i really like i really graft but i graft with the non-negotiable that kids first yeah no we're the same and i will find the time myself to get the rest of it done you know yeah missing bedtime is uh once a year so what's what is the next chapter for you on a kind of personal level there anything you're working on or sort of

developing i am just excited like that's kind of it really great thing to say i think i kind of i've actually stopped making plans too much because again like what happens you either achieve the planning thing oh why don't i come up with something else well you don't get there and you feel like a bit of a letdown you know all i want to do is try and make kind of the best decisions every day and see where that takes me i'm 44 so i'm definitely at a point where life experiences is what i is what i really cherish you know just simply sitting and having a coffee with friends is something that in years gone by when i was fully focused on a tv career i was like i would forego that i definitely need to work on that like i'm not the best at small talk

but it's just those like real sort of lived moments with people is what i want to enjoy but i think the other thing that i i just am absolutely desperate to not finish this without telling people that like i I am a walking mistake. I don't want them to listen to a conversation like this. And I just think the world can be so alienating for people. I just want to say that I came from a tiny village. There was nothing unique about me. I got some really great luck along the way.

I've learned a few things which hopefully i've shared with you in a way that makes a modicum of sense to a few people the biggest one being optimism and i feel that i've kind of stumbled to this place without too much of a plan so to start making a plan at 44 years old might be foolish i just want to stay healthy i think that that is the you do start don't you to get this mindset of like i suppose the way that i look at it is that like we're constantly regenerating so then you know the eyes that i've got are not the same ones i was born with right the hair has grown the skin is constantly shedding all of this stuff there's only one thing that i'm made of now and that's the food i've eaten so that is a that is a big mindset shift for me that every single thing that goes in my body regenerates my body

so what do i want to be regenerated out of hopefully the good stuff if i can stay healthy do a bit of exercise hopefully i'll come and talk to you again in 10 years time and you want to plan a huge amount since. I think it's so humble to say it's a mistake. And I so appreciate that because I think that that's part of life, isn't it? As we've said, like life is anything but linear. And I think it's so important to acknowledge that. But equally, there's so many mistakes and so many ups and downs that we we can learn from and i think that's what helps us move forward

and start to implement those learnings to hopefully whilst not linear create an upward trajectory i think so ella i think you're right and i think just people just need to be kind to themselves like i'm a warrior to each other like you do you worry i'm a warrior full catastrophizer when i used to go out right there's like an 18 year old 19 year old I used to lay in bed the next morning panicked about what I did where I went what you said what I said I was like what did I say well I could remember it all but and I remember thinking why am I so worried then I got onto kids telly and it became worse because I was like well I'm on kids telly now did someone see me drinking did I smoke a cigarette and I'm like that now so like there's not a lot of peace when you have that kind of a mind. So even after this, I'll leave going,

did I say anything that's like, was it okay? I think it's just about being kind to yourself, realizing that everyone has got all sorts of mad stuff spinning around in their heads all the time. So just treat yourself well. Yeah, and everyone else, because you don't know what everyone else is thinking. And I think that's one of our big mistakes

in the world we live in is that, as we've said, we all have our ups, but we very much all have our downs. And I think you never really appreciate, you know, when you were going through that very dark period, no one around you knew, and there'll be people you come in contact with every single day. There'll be people everyone listening would have seen today who will be having a difficult time. And I think the bigger the lens of compassion we can bring I think you've got to do it to yourself first be able to give it to other people but I think the more we can do that the more we'll all move forward in a in a better way but honestly Jake can't thank you enough for your time today and for your real honesty as I said at the beginning I think what I so appreciate about you is this mix

of real honesty and vulnerability but with this kind of very can-do attitude of let's move forward from that and let's keep going let's keep being grateful for the opportunity to keep growing which I think is quite a rare combination and I really like it well I really appreciate the kind words and thank you for the invite pleasure thank you very much gosh wasn't Jakeake just unbelievable i don't say that to sound sycophantic but just i think there's this really unusual combination of such vulnerability openness and honesty but also self-awareness and a desire to move forward in such a resolute way and i am very inspired by that i think he's a very wise man and I certainly really resonated with this idea that we so often look at other people and they they seem so

successful so normal from the outside but inside they can be crumbling and we've got to be so much more compassionate to one another and also as he said remove the stigma and talk so clearly and so honestly about what that actually looks like to normalize it a step further than we often are at the moment I think there's also a lot to take from his phrase not sitting in the comfy chair and knowing when one chapter is maybe closing maybe that's the case for you right now and it's time to look at what the next chapter might hold even if that feels very very scary And also this idea that high performance initially meant classic success to him. And now it means contentment, fulfillment, happiness,

and that he's interviewed all these people and seen all these people who are wildly successful, and yet they're not happy. And I think this reframing of success into contentment, happiness, fulfillment is so important. So I hope you've enjoyed coming on this journey with us, that you've taken something from it. And if those were themes that resonated with you, each week we're going to put together a little take-home toolkit for you, because I know it's one thing to hear about lots of ideas and then actually implementing them into your life can be a whole nother thing. So on Feel Better, which is our Deliciously Ella app, we've got basically everything you need from your health,

recipes, meditations, mindfulness, breath work, sleep tools, all the at-home exercise classes you need. But we're going to cherry pick every one of those that really resonates with what we've been talking about and those themes. So if these are themes that you want to work on in your own life, we've kind of done the work for you and pulled them together so for jake we've got gratitude meditations stillness because obviously we talked a lot about that ability to find quiet at the start of the day and slow down breathing so you can really tune into yourself so if you

are interested you can find those on feel better and if you've not got it you can have a seven day free trial and download it now from app store from google play or just head to deliciouslyella.com and after your free trial it's just 2.99 a month or 24.99 a year so it's truly the most accessible full health app out there would absolutely love to hear from you on our second episode any thoughts or feedback that you've got it means the world when you share it it really does so at deliciously ella on social media podcast at deliciouslyella.com if you want to send us an email and please do rate it review it subscribe it does make the biggest difference to all the work we pour into the show and otherwise

just a huge thank you for listening thank you for being part of this thank you for letting the podcast evolve and coming with us it really feels like a huge privilege to be doing this and as always massive thank you to Curly Media who are our partners in producing the show. you're a podcast listener and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.