Jake Humphrey
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
It does.
I mean, look, you and I have spoken often about the books that changed everything for me when I failed my A-levels and I kind of had a moment where I had to really take stock of my life and work out what was going on.
And a friend of my parents, an amazing lady called Jill, Jill Atkinson, she bought me a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers.
And I think she was the first person in my life that realised that...
I wasn't in the school plays and I wasn't in the school football team and I didn't do very well in exams and I lost my job and I didn't stand out and I hadn't had no successes really by the time I was 18 because I was feeling the fear and then shying away from it, right?
So this book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, was a game changer.
And actually now when I think of all the things that I've done since then, I now realize that...
What that book allowed me to do was sit with that fear.
So if I think back to Formula One, when I was told by my boss, the audience will make up their minds about whether you're a good Formula One presenter in 10 seconds.
And if they decide that you're not, there won't be a second season.
There might not even be a second race.
I remember calling my parents before that first Grand Prix saying, I just don't think I've got the ability to do this.
I wasn't ignoring the fact that I might only have one race as an F1 host.
And I wasn't ignoring the fact that I thought it was beyond my ability level to do that job.
I was kind of leaning into it.
I guess...
Walking away from that job, I was fully aware what it meant to no longer work at the BBC.
And I remember my first day ever working for BT Sport.
Bearing in mind I'd left the sort of most famous, biggest broadcaster on the planet.
And I walked in a room of six people sitting around a table.