The 4 Questions That Will Change Your Perspective on Life

66.831 - 81.786 Jake Humphrey

Yeah, and I think, you know, just for clarity for people listening, this is your work. I've just been told to sit down and listen. So I don't know what we're going to do, what we're going to talk about. But I think I... My entire role on High Performance for the last five years has been the not-so-clever one.

82.007 - 86.796 Jake Humphrey

So I'm more than happy just to play the fool on this occasion and ask the questions that people at home might be thinking.

86.936 - 99.9 Damian Hughes

Well, you definitely do yourself a disservice, Jake, but let's start with the first one of does your life add up? Is it coherent? And I thought we'd go and listen to one of my favourite guests that we've had on, the brilliant Dr Pippa Grange.

101.602 - 131.473 Dr Pippa Grange

What does extreme elite performance require? Risk. You have to be vulnerable enough to put yourself out there. And every time there is a culture of conformity, for me, it's impoverishing. It really strips away people's ability to take that risk, to stand up. You know, you would have read in the book, the Richmond Tigers, AFL, their triple H exercise, which actually came from Atlanta Falcons, NFL,

131.825 - 147.454 Dr Pippa Grange

which was like being able to stand up and say, to tell a story of a hero hardship and highlight in their own life. And, you know, for all these guys had endured and tolerated and the whole world looks at them as brave,

193.874 - 218.508 Jake Humphrey

My first hero, I say first because I think life changes as you go. I would put Harriet as one of my heroes. I'd put you as one of my heroes. I'd put Son-in-law Ron Whisperwith as one of my heroes. But the first person I looked at as a hero was my grandpa because he was a police officer and he was always well turned out. It's really weird. I know this sounds the most random thing in the world.

218.528 - 235.573 Jake Humphrey

He taught me to blow my nose, right? So I remember distinctly sitting on his knee and he held a tissue and was like, now blow. It's a simple thing, but you don't know how to blow your nose when you're three years old. And he always had his shoes really well polished, and he wanted to be a police officer, and then I then wanted to be a police officer.

236.114 - 253.859 Jake Humphrey

And actually, that leads on to a hardship, and it's not the greatest hardship. You know, losing my grandma, as you know, to suicide was very hard. Being bullied and changing schools was hard. There was a few other tricky things along the way. But I dreamed of being a police officer, and when I was seven... I had a colour blindness test at school and I did the colour blindness test.

254.52 - 269.956 Jake Humphrey

They said to me, you're colour blind. I was like, oh, okay. And these are all the jobs you can't do. And police officer was on the list. And I went home and cried to my mum. I then tried to apply to be a special police officer when I was 18, thinking that maybe they wouldn't test my colour blindness and they did and I failed again.

334.487 - 345.043 Damian Hughes

What a brilliant story. And actually, let's go a bit further into the conversation with Pippa, because that first example of your grandpa being a hero is something that Pippa actually references.

346.762 - 368.196 Dr Pippa Grange

So the Triple H is really just an anchor for the storytelling of, you know, the hero in your life, the hardship and the highlight. And almost everybody tells a personal story. It'll be about a grandma or a person who's meant everything to them or a moment where they felt really small and overcame. And it's humbling.

368.412 - 383.502 Dr Pippa Grange

It really introduces humility and the bond that comes out of doing that, like really seeing the person behind the shirt or the human being behind the role or the title is so rich.

385.085 - 404.224 Damian Hughes

So understanding the coherence of how your life adds up to that moment of hosting the 2012 Olympics and the role of your grandpa and that overcoming some of those hardships is significant. And that leads us to the second element, which is understanding how you matter and how you make a difference.

404.204 - 419.377 Damian Hughes

Now, there was a really powerful conversation that we had with H. Now, I found it particularly resonant because he grew up in the area of Manchester where I did. But when he spoke to us, he spoke to us about somebody that was really significant in his own life.

457.064 - 477.546 Aitch

It's funny, like, I'll go make platinum records and perform in front of 80,000 people, but when I get home, I'm not the superstar she is. And, like, yeah, man, I don't know. She literally is an inspiration. I'm not even sitting here, like, trying to get soppy or anything like that, but, like, on a genuine one, she's just, like, some inspiring little person.

479.268 - 497.392 Damian Hughes

Let's, again, relate this to you, Jake, in terms of the significance. Like, what are the moments where you realise that who you are really matters? I'm not sure I have realised that, really. How do you mean? Well, in terms of who is it where your significance really plays the biggest part?

497.512 - 520.42 Jake Humphrey

Oh, right, okay. Well, having kids. I mean, there's that very strange moment when your children are born that you stop and you go, oh, my goodness, that's how much my parents loved me. And you think back to all those times that you were critical of them or dismissive of them or hard on them or made their lives difficult. And I guess I'm still in that lovely place where Flo's 11 and Seb's 9.

520.46 - 540.121 Jake Humphrey

So I remain the sun, the moon and the stars to my kids. And you just start to see it not being the case with Florence now. In fact, it's funny we're talking about it now because I've stayed overnight in London and yesterday when I left, I went to give her a kiss and for the first time ever, her eyes started flicking left and right like, who's seeing my dad give me a kiss goodbye?

540.842 - 554.958 Jake Humphrey

And that is like a tiny moment of heartbreak because it's not that moment that's heartbreaking, but it's... It's the vision into the future that soon it's going to be hard to hold. Like holding a hand will be hard and giving her a hug will be hard because other people will become more important.

597.727 - 616.039 Jake Humphrey

I think that's probably the reason why I try and do so much charity stuff. So my dad was a charity worker. So I grew up in a house where it was expected that you would take care of people in a less fortunate position than you, where my dad could have earned more money, been more successful, had more lovely things in his life if he'd have left the charity sector to go and work.

616.019 - 643.14 Jake Humphrey

work in um work in the private sector and my sister now works for the nhs my brother spent a long time as a teacher i've created the high performance foundation work with lots of charities i think this sense of realizing there's more than you on this earth and you can leave something bigger is is something that runs through my family and i think probably is one of the reasons why stopping being a football presenter and focusing basically full-time on high performance is

643.12 - 658.685 Jake Humphrey

was an easier decision for me because doing this with you is the first time in my whole career that I feel like I'm of value. I think until now I was just talking about other people's achievements and sometimes in not a very helpful way. Should that manager be sacked? Should that player be dropped?

659.206 - 664.234 Jake Humphrey

Let's focus in minute detail on that refereeing decision with more information than that referee can ever have.

664.214 - 686.256 Jake Humphrey

why is that if one driver made that mistake at 200 miles an hour why is that olympian not delivered after four years of hard work that was my life like asking those questions on the telly who's that helping whereas this i do feel is is of value so have you had a moment with the community sport foundation or the young lives versus cancer where you've realized the significance of your impact

942.981 - 962.504 Damian Hughes

Brilliant. Which then allows you to make decisions about what you're going to do next and whether you're going to take it on, which gives us that sense of purpose and clarity. So that brings us to the fourth of what I'd suggest the questions we can all be asking ourselves, which is, do you have a sense of belonging, feeling that you're part of something bigger?

963.125 - 963.225

Yeah.

963.205 - 976.978 Damian Hughes

So when I first read about this from the existential psychologist Titania Schnell, the fourth one about feeling a sense of belonging, being part of something bigger, reminded me of this conversation that we had on the first time round with Dr Brongan Chatterjee.

978.427 - 1000.335 Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

And I tell you, one of my patients from a few years ago, I remember so well, and I think the story might resonate with your audience. 35-year-old chap came in to see me, felt a bit indifferent about life, feeling pretty low. And I was asking him about his life. And from the outside, like this guy was crushing it. good job, running his own business, right?

1000.375 - 1017.614 Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

Making good money, driving a sports car, right? He's got all those external metrics of success. And maybe people are listening right now going, yeah, that's what I want. Right, but here's the thing. I asked him, because I was trying to figure out what's going on here. Why is he feeling so low? Why does he struggle to get out of bed some mornings?

1170.447 - 1191.595 Jake Humphrey

the best part of a billion quid on this and you're the one that's responsible for making it successful or not so again the responsibility meant I didn't really enjoy that and I didn't really socialize much I just focused on trying to be the best football presenter that I could be and then when I stopped doing that and I come and trying to make high performance as great as it can be I don't see the guys I used to work with on football

1191.743 - 1210.303 Jake Humphrey

So not long ago, I was in exactly the position that that person was in. And I definitely... I wasn't lonely because I'm busy and I've got lots going on. But if you said to me, who will you ring if you've got an issue? I probably would have said nobody, right? Yeah. Which is an embarrassing thing to admit as a guy in your 40s and not a great place to be.

1211.024 - 1230.405 Jake Humphrey

But I think it wasn't just the constant changing of jobs and this... for whatever reason, drive and desire to be successful that had caused all of that. I think I'd also slipped into a place where my conversations with people, particularly other blokes, were just not very fulfilling. And it's not from their responsibility. That's my responsibility.

1231.246 - 1243.833 Jake Humphrey

So I just really do struggle with small, how are you? What are you up to? Where are you going on a holiday? Like, I have this voice in my head going, I don't give where this person's gone on holiday and they don't give a shit what I'm going on holiday and how our kids are and how their kids are.

1244.534 - 1264.488 Jake Humphrey

And what had happened was I'd allowed myself to stop having real conversations, basically, because I was busy doing other things. So then I had to make a conscious effort to go, right, the first thing I need to do is live like the kind of person I talk about we should be on high performance, right? Which is lean into people, which is understand people a bit more.

1399.3 - 1405.507 Damian Hughes

But I think what I want to explore with you there is what have you seen in the benefits of doing that, of leaning into people?

1406.068 - 1425.001 Jake Humphrey

Well, mate, an empathy and an understanding that other people are struggling. You know how you always have a view that your life is a struggle and everyone else's is easy? Once you start saying what's keeping you up at night... you very quickly realise that there is a lot going on. And also I think we're guilty of assuming someone's behaviour tells them what they think about us.

1425.081 - 1435.742 Jake Humphrey

It's absolute nonsense. Someone's behaviour tells us what they think about their life, right? Say what you mean by that. So if someone's quiet or a bit off with you or a bit distant, you assume, oh, they don't like me very much. That's not true.

1435.925 - 1447.525 Jake Humphrey

What you soon realise if you ask them how they are is that they've got so many frigging things spinning around in their head, they almost haven't got any spare capacity to connect with you properly. But if you connect with them, then that's great.

1447.666 - 1464.413 Jake Humphrey

I think the final thing which has been the biggest realisation is that I used to think that everyone else had loads of mates and a great, like, fulfilling social life. until you start going out and having proper conversations with your mates who then start going, I've not had a conversation like this for years with anyone.