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How To Live Your Best Life with Jake Humphrey #224

Dec 8, 2021 1h 54m 37 insights
CAUTION: This episode contains swearing and themes of an adult nature. Are you looking for high performance in your life – whether that be your work life, your personal life or perhaps in a weekend hobby? Or, does the term high performance not really resonate with you? Well, irrespective of your answer, I think you are going to really enjoy today's conversation with my guest, Jake Humphrey. Jake is one of the UK’s best known TV presenters, and he is currently the lead Premier League football presenter on BT sport, having previously spent over a decade at the BBC covering Formula One and before that children's television. Jake also hosts the High Performance podcast along with psychologist, Professor Damien Hughes. Together, they have conversations with a variety of different people that allow all of us to access the lessons and habits of high performance. They have recently brought all of that wisdom together into one place with the publication of their brand-new book, High Performance: Lessons from the best on becoming your best. But what does high performance really mean? Is it something that we should be focusing on? Or, is the desire for high performance leading us to do too much in an endless quest for perfection? This is something that Jake and I talk about at length in this conversation. Jake shares his own fascinating personal story about how he went from failing his A levels to becoming one of the UK’s most well-known TV presenters. We cover a wide range of topics including reframing failure, the importance of taking responsibility for every aspect of your life, and why mindset is the first thing that we should work on, even before we get to our behaviours. We also discuss how to build resilience and the importance of what Jake calls ‘world class habits’. I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Jake - it was authentic, honest, and at times raw. I hope you enjoy listening. Thanks to our
Actionable Insights

1. Prioritize Mindset for Performance

Understand that a high-performance mindset is the foundational starting point for all high performance. Cultivate the right mindset before attempting to implement new behaviors or strategies.

2. Distinguish Fault from Responsibility

Understand that while many negative events may not be your fault, how you react to them is your responsibility. Taking control of your reaction allows for personal growth and happiness.

3. Embrace 100% Life Responsibility

Commit to taking 100% responsibility for every facet of your life, regardless of fault or perceived control. This mindset is crucial for growth, learning, and finding happiness.

4. Choose Your Life’s Story

Understand that your happiness is determined by the story you choose to put on events, rather than the objective truth of the events themselves. Select narratives that promote happiness, calmness, and contentment.

5. Rewrite Your Brain’s Stories

Recognize that your brain often creates stories you then believe, especially negative ones. Actively choose to rewrite these stories into positive narratives and believe them, fostering a more optimistic outlook.

6. Reframe Failure as Growth

Change your perception of failure from a negative outcome to an essential part of growth and exploration. Successful individuals fail more because they constantly push boundaries, learning and evolving from each experience.

7. Cultivate a Positive Mindset

Actively choose to think positively and explore a positive mindset, rather than expecting bad things. This practice can become a habit, leading to a happier life.

8. Action Leads to Motivation

Do not wait for full motivation or the perfect time to start an action. Begin now, as taking action will create a snowball effect, and motivation will follow.

9. Find Happiness Now

Do not postpone happiness until future achievements or the absence of worries. Actively seek and find happiness in the present moment, as it is a choice available now.

10. Maintain a Steady Inner Flame

Separate your self-worth from external validation or criticism, living like a candle with a steady flame. Believe in yourself and understand that external events should not impact your core sense of self.

11. Practice Full Presence

Actively work on being fully present and engaged in the current conversation or task, rather than letting your mind wander to future events or past worries. This practice makes life feel much richer and more rewarding.

12. Be Consistent with Self-Kindness

Treat consistency as a contract with yourself, committing daily to self-kindness, a positive outlook, reframing negative thoughts, improving relationships, and starting the day well. This ensures you consistently nurture your most important relationship: with yourself.

13. Be Good to Yourself

Practice self-compassion and be kind to yourself, especially when comparing your life to others’ perceived successes. This self-kindness is the starting point for exploration and personal growth.

14. Prioritize Your Happiness

Make happiness a non-negotiable criterion for your actions and choices. Regularly ask yourself if what you are doing contributes to your happiness.

15. Cultivate High Self-Efficacy

Develop high self-efficacy by understanding and believing in your own worth, and trusting that positive outcomes are possible. Focus on doing the best you can with your current resources, rather than striving for perfection.

16. Affirm Your Best Effort

Regularly affirm your efforts and acknowledge that you have done your best. This practice builds self-efficacy and reinforces a positive self-image.

17. Embrace Your Failures

Overcome self-criticism by embracing your relationship with failure. Understand that acknowledging areas where you’ve struggled or failed is crucial for self-acceptance and growth.

18. Expect Failure from the Start

Begin new ventures with the expectation of encountering failure. This prepares you mentally, preventing derailment and allowing you to persist through difficult periods to reach positive outcomes.

19. Find Freedom in Accepting Failure

Once you accept that failure is an inevitable part of any endeavor, you gain the freedom to pursue new opportunities and take risks that self-doubt previously prevented.

20. See Training as Intentional Failure

View practice or training as intentional failure, where mistakes are made to learn and improve. This reframing highlights that growth occurs precisely in the moments of perceived failure.

21. Hold Beliefs Lightly, Embrace Failure

Adopt a mindset of holding your beliefs lightly, being open to new information and allowing for exploration. Actively seek out failure as a constant process of pushing boundaries and learning, which is the only way to truly grow.

22. Hard Does Not Mean Bad

Reframe difficult experiences by recognizing that something being hard does not automatically mean it is bad. Challenges can build resilience and lead to positive growth.

23. Remember Impermanence

Keep in mind that all experiences, both good and bad, are impermanent. This perspective helps maintain balance, preventing excessive elation during good times and providing hope during difficult periods.

24. Maintain Emotional Balance

Strive to maintain emotional equilibrium by not allowing extreme external factors, whether positive praise or negative criticism, to overly influence your inner state. This prevents dramatic emotional swings.

25. Challenge Self-Doubt and Insecurity

Recognize when self-doubt and insecurity lead you to create negative stories about your capabilities. Instead, challenge these thoughts and consciously write positive stories for yourself, believing in your potential.

26. Implement World-Class Basics

Integrate simple, positive ‘world-class basics’ into your daily life, such as making your bed, starting the day with positive words to your kids, communicating difficult subjects, smiling at everyone, and asking questions. These small actions bring happiness and positivity.

27. Rewrite Friction’s Story Daily

Daily, when encountering moments of friction or minor setbacks, consciously choose to rewrite the narrative around them. This small, consistent practice helps manage stress and maintain a positive outlook.

28. Score Likelihood of Outcomes

To combat catastrophizing, assign a likelihood score (e.g., 1-10) to potential outcomes in your life. This helps to rationally assess negative possibilities as low and positive ones as high, ending negative spirals.

29. Bring Presence to All Tasks

Apply the same level of presence and focus to everyday tasks, like washing dishes, as you would to a major achievement. This mindset helps find happiness and high performance in all aspects of life, regardless of societal labels.

30. Practice Radical Communication

Embrace radical communication by telling everyone everything, especially within your team (including family). This prevents people from filling in gaps with assumptions and fosters stronger relationships.

31. Share Knowledge Generously

Share all your knowledge and lessons learned with others, as this encourages you to seek new information and helps to uplift and educate those around you.

32. Celebrate Others’ Success

Avoid comparing yourself negatively to others; their success does not diminish your own. Instead, genuinely wish for and celebrate the success of others, fostering a positive and cooperative mindset.

33. Prioritize Empathy Over Opinion

Avoid forming strong opinions about others and how they should live, recognizing that opinion is the lowest form of knowledge. Instead, approach interactions with empathy, understanding that everyone carries unseen burdens.

34. Define Your Life’s Non-Negotiables

Identify and commit to your ’non-negotiables’—the core principles, values, or actions that you and those around you must uphold for success, happiness, and overall well-being in life.

35. Use Tripwires to Assess Character

When building a team or choosing people to surround yourself with, use ’tripwires’ (small, intentional challenges or mistakes) to observe how individuals react. This reveals their true mindset, beliefs, and values.

36. Allow Kids to Struggle and Fail

Resist the urge to ‘helicopter parent’ and smooth every path for your children. Allow them to struggle and fail, as these experiences are essential for building resilience and equipping them for the real world.

37. Fail Forwards with Reflection

When you or others fail, encourage reflection by asking if effort was applied and if the failure truly matters in the grand scheme. This helps to learn from mistakes and put them into context, promoting growth.