Lessons From 50 Of The Worlds Greatest Minds with Jake Humphrey

The thing I think about most, especially when I'm on the go but also when I'm sat here in the Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I'm filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do when I arrive is open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is.

The number of screenshots I've sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it's such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. On any given day, if I'm recording hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team who then do the edit.

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This week on the Diary of a CEO, we have a returning guest: Jake Humphrey. He is an entrepreneur, a TV presenter, and he is also now a podcaster. Jake has spent the last year on his podcast sitting down with some of the most high-performance people, some of the most accomplished people in their industries, from acting to business to sports—you name it.

Because of that experience and because of all the insights he's gained over the last year since we last spoke, I wanted to sit down with him and compare notes. We have a lot of high-performance people on this podcast too. I wanted to understand the similarities. I wanted to peek into the minds of some of the guests and what he's learned from them.

How are they the same? What makes them different? That's what we're going to talk about today. So, without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

You've had what, 30 people on your podcast today? You've got a lot more coming up. One of the key questions I wanted to ask you—because it's something I ask myself—is: what are those key lessons that you've learned? You've interviewed high-performance athletes, actors, authors, and high-performance people from all industries. What are the key lessons and the themes?

I think there is one key lesson that was summed up for me by Matthew McConaughey, the Oscar-winning actor who came on my pod recently. His phrase is: "Don't leave crumbs." What he means by that is when you're making a decision, don't leave stuff behind. Don't make a bad decision now that later on you've got to go back and pick up that crumb and be regretful about it.

That's brilliant because sometimes when we talk on the podcast, we talk about really big, blue-sky thinking. We talk to you about Social Chain, and sometimes to people listening, that can seem unreal, almost untouchable, because it's this huge multimillion-dollar business that you've created.

But actually, "Don't leave crumbs" is about making decisions for a big business like that, but also like: make sure that you don't have an extra drink in the evening in case it leaves you with a hangover tomorrow and you've got work to do. Or make sure you simply choose your clothes the night before so you're not doing it in a rush.

I still leave crumbs all the time. When we interviewed Matthew, he was the first Hollywood actor we've had on the pod, so for me, it was quite a big moment. I thought, "Right, I really want to be looking good for this." I thought I'd have a shower and a shave before we do the interview.

I was having a shave in the bathroom, and my wife was in the bath. She was going to come down and listen in the corner in my study because she loves *Dallas Buyers Club* and was excited. I'm having a shave and she goes, "It's 9:54." I was like, "Argh!" I thought it was 9:30 or something. We'd put the kids to bed.

Next thing, I'm running downstairs. I haven't done my hair properly. I'm on the wrong Wi-Fi because our upload speed living in the countryside is horrendous. I then looked for the script that I'd written for the questions for Matthew and couldn't find them. I was the last one in. I'm getting beaten to the interview on my own podcast by a Hollywood actor. I left crumbs.

That's a good lesson for me because I do it all the time. You only learn about the crumbs you leave by doing it. I've had a few negative comments come my way about the podcast—direct messages from people saying, "You're getting this all wrong. We're in a global pandemic, I'm having a really hard year, and here you are with a podcast that's just celebrating success all the time and showing up how we're all doing badly compared to your great guests."

For me, the podcast is the absolute total opposite of that. When we talk about what lessons you can learn from people on the podcast, the other biggest one is: they mess up all the time. I genuinely believe successful people make more mistakes than anybody else because they're constantly challenging themselves to do stuff.

You know the point about those crumbs and rushing down the stairs when you realized you were late? What could you have done in hindsight to prevent those crumbs being left behind?

I just need to be really honest with myself that I have weaknesses and I need to address them, rather than thinking that everything's fine. I am notoriously late. I am always a few minutes late. Always my New Year's resolution is: this is the year that I'm not going to be late.

I'm surprised that you're late, because the industry you work in is very...

I know! And look at all the guests I've had on my podcast. We had Sir Clive Woodward, who won the Rugby World Cup. You think of all the discipline and the rules and the mindset you need to win a Rugby World Cup. The number one thing that stands out for him is something called "Lombardi time," which was created by the players.

Lombardi is a famous name in American sports, and they call it Lombardi time because it's a name that resonates with winning. It was ten minutes early. If you say to any former England rugby player, "What's Lombardi time?" they'll tell you: ten minutes early.

I'm hearing this stuff on a weekly basis and still not getting it right. I think it just goes to show that we are human, we are fallible, and I do think we have blind spots. There are some things some people find really hard that I don't, and there are some things that are not an issue for other people that are a recurring problem for me. No one's perfect.

How do you emotionally feel about the fact that you have blind spots? Do you beat yourself up about it?

Yeah, I think so. It's a really common phrase to hear that you're your own biggest critic. I think I'm probably less my own biggest critic than I was previously. When I first started in my presenting career and used to come off air on the Formula One, I would solely focus on the bad stuff, the issues, the problems.

That was instilled in me by David Coulthard because he'd step straight out of a Formula One car straight into broadcasting. TV is a friendly and lovely place to be most of the time. We're really good at telling each other how great we are. We had our first production meeting just after the first race. I was just grateful to get through it—it was my first-ever bit of live Formula One.

I was ready for this lovely "you were great, you were great" vibe. We started the meeting and David Coulthard went, "Whoa, whoa, sorry. Can we just stop? I'm just not interested in this." The producer was like, "Sorry, I don't understand." He said, "I'm not interested in sitting here and going through all the good stuff. How does going through the good stuff make the boat go faster? Why are we not talking about the bad stuff?"

That was a revelation for me. I was like, "Yes!" Now I have a different mindset. Bearing in mind my first race was 2009—this is 11 years ago—for a long time, my focus was on the stuff that I was struggling with or the stuff I wasn't very good at.

Why don't we focus more on the good stuff? That is my mindset change. That is the thing for 2021 that's going to be my focus. Let's focus on the good stuff so we realize what the good stuff is and just do more of it. Let's focus on the times when you were flowing and when you were feeling great, and you were the guy and everyone wanted to work with you. What was I doing? What was I eating? How was I sleeping? Who was I spending my time with? That's probably a better place to focus.

Particularly after the crap 2020 we've all had, I feel we've become a nation, maybe even a planet, with this obsession on failure. Not to fail anymore, but to be good. It's almost like a badge of honor. How's your relationship with failure?

I don't focus on the failure. I'm very, very good at being detached from it all. I think I talked earlier in this podcast about this video game mentality that I've taken on my life where I see my worst days as if I'm playing a video game and that I am not what's happening.

That detachment has allowed me, in my most chaotic moments, to remain calm. It's allowed me to form a sort of calm within my chaos. So if I have a big failure or I really screw up and I'm disappointed with myself, I'm very good at detaching from that.

I think absolute ownership of what you're doing, for me, is powerful. Is that the total opposite of what you're saying? Because I think whatever I do, I have to absolutely believe it and own that decision. Then if it goes wrong or people question it, I can say, "Listen, I really thought it was the right thing."

It's more of the emotional detachment. It means that I don't think that I'm going to die, although I am totally responsible for changing it. I'm thinking specifically about the day where I was driving to work and got the text messages saying that our whole server had been hacked and every client we have has been sent really personal, specific abuse by them from our email server.

When did this happen?

This happened about four or five years ago. In that moment, one has a choice whether they want to fall into the problem and become the problem and become consumed by it, or if they want to hold it out in front of them and deal with it there.

If it consumes me, I'll be crippled with anxiety crying in the corner. But if I can hold it out in front of me and realize that this isn't going to kill me, this isn't going to end me—this is something that I have to deal with out in front of me—then it becomes much more possible to be rational and to think in terms of probabilities.

I've come to learn, especially over the last year or two, that when you can make your decisions based on probabilities of the outcome, you can make really, really good decisions. A good example of that is actually a friend of mine yesterday texted me. He said that at his marketing agency, his clients' passwords have maybe been exposed to one outside individual.

There's one guy at another company that might have seen all of his clients' passwords. He said, "Steven, I've got to call all of my clients now and tell them that all of their passwords have been exposed." I said, "Let's go through the probabilities here. If you lined up 100 people like the guy that might have seen these passwords, how many of them would do something malicious with that information?"

We both agreed it was probably less than 1% of reputable people that would take a bunch of passwords and do something malicious. So your probability of harm is less than 1%. What's the probability of harm if you call all of your clients and tell them that all of their passwords have been leaked? Probably greater than 1%.

So let's think about ways we can get that less than 1% down to like zero. I said, "Email all your clients and tell them you've done a security review and that you highly recommend they all turn on two-factor authentication today." That means the probability of harm goes from less than 1% to zero.

But he was in the emotional mindset. He was just like, "I'm going to call them all, apologize all day." He probably felt a duty of care, but if you do the two-step authentication, you're still doing your duty of care. It moves it to 0% harm. You're balancing a duty of care and how do I remove harm from my clients but also remove harm from my business. He was so emotional when he called me that he wasn't thinking rationally.

Perspective. That perspective is so important to have. I've always had an irrational fear of imminent disaster. When I was a kid, I used to come home from school and my mom would be out walking the dog. She might be 15 or 20 minutes. Most kids would just watch cartoons; I would be at the window after 10 minutes thinking, "Where's my mom? Where's my mom?"

Then these little voices come in my head: "Maybe something really bad's happened to her. Maybe she's slipped over and banged her head." Even now with my kids, if I'm out somewhere and they go round a corner, I don't just think to myself, "I'll walk round the corner and my kids will be there."

Until I can see my kids again, the worst possible things that could happen to one's children are happening to my kids. So I find myself speeding up or saying to my friends, "Yeah, hey, let's go and sit over here so we can keep an eye on the kids."

Then I'm a little bit of a hypochondriac, so I fear that. And then when my phone goes and someone sends me a message going, "Hey Jake, can we have a chat later?" It could be someone from Whisper, or it could be someone from BT Sport, or someone about the pod. I don't go, "Yeah, cool, I'll call you later." I'm like, "Oh, what could that be?"

My brain goes to the worst-case scenario. I find myself really quickly going, "Sorry, just got a really important call to make." My heart's racing ten to the dozen. And then as soon as I find out what it is, I'm like, "Oh, thank goodness."

Where does this come from in you?

I don't know. Because there is no skeleton in the closet. A friend rang me the other day and the message that he gave me was he's separating from his wife. Which is massively sad, but he rang me and said, "Listen, I'm really sorry to call you with this quite awkward news." I'm immediately thinking, "Oh my goodness, what on earth can this be?" In my head, it's going to end everything. It's going to cost me my marriage, my kids, my job, my house.

Isn't that ridiculous? But I now have the perspective that I know this is how I am. I've had this since I was like 11 or 12 years old. I know this is how I'm made. So that is a really powerful thing for me because I then think, when I feel this feeling beginning, I now say to myself, "Listen, your kids are going to be fine playing the other side of a tree. You know yourself well enough to know that this is just irrational anxiety. It's your brain, and it's just playing a trick on you."

You talk a lot about responsibility. There you just said, "This is how I'm made." That sounds like giving up responsibility.

Yeah, you're right. You are totally right. But then I feel like I'm taking the responsibility back by saying, "Right, I'm not going to allow myself to get anxious about that because I know what I'm like." If I'm the most chilled-out person in the world and I find a reason to be anxious, maybe I should be worried about that.

I'm going to tell them about the lift, Jake. Come on, tell them about that. So we're on the fourth floor here, and Jake came up, knocked on the door looking pretty sweaty and said, "I just took the stairs because I opened the lift and I didn't trust it." This lift, there's never been any problems with it. If you look at the stats around deaths in lifts or things...

I know! It's like 0.00%. You've got more chance walking down this street. Mate, I looked at that lift and I'm like, "You and me are not hanging out today. I'm taking the stairs."

That seems somewhat connected to what you're saying.

Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe I should have taken the lift because I know that everything will be fine in the lift. I know that I'm a bit claustrophobic. But I think it just goes to show that from the outside world, you'd look at someone like me and think, "Wow, couple of kids, a few businesses, great house, nice broadcasting career. What a lovely carefree life he must live." Every day, man, is riddled with little anxieties and little worries.

A few years ago, probably almost to the point of derailing as we've discussed on your previous podcast with me, but now knowing myself—knowing yourself is so powerful, because only then can you love yourself.

Do you think that's also somewhat linked to that comment you read earlier where people are like, "Jake, you shouldn't be doing a happy podcast in sad times"? The fact that you remembered that and you referred to it as "hurting you" seems also somewhat correlated to this.

Yeah, I think it's a fair point. I find external criticism a harder thing for me to deal with. I find that a more difficult thing to own in my head.

Why?

I think because probably human beings just want people to like what we're doing. I find it confusing as well, because I think if you're being offended by my High Performance Podcast—wow. That shows the level of offense that some people can take. I really want it to just be a wholly positive experience from the moment that someone clicks subscribe or starts listening to the pod to the minute they leave. I just want people to be happier, to get takeaways, to live a more empowered life, to go and be successful. I honestly believe it.

You've got thousands and thousands and thousands of reviews on your podcast. It's rated five stars. People pour their heart out telling you how much they've loved it, how much value it brings. And we're talking about this one guy.

I'm a human, I suppose, aren't I?

I think you slightly over-index a little bit in terms of caring about this stuff, though. And I actually, you know, when people asked what you're like after meeting you, I said, "He's just such a nice guy, such a good guy." And you are such a good guy, and it's maybe part of—is that somewhat connected to your—

I think so. Don't you think that the two are completely connected, though? That if I wasn't the kind of guy that genuinely wanted people to be in a better place, I wouldn't give a shit whether someone said my podcast was useless, because I'd be like, "Well, I don't care anyway, I'm just doing it to make some money."

For me, that podcast—and I will openly add and say this—I've not made a penny from creating and operating it for an entire year. And we talk all the time that this is about the outcome, not the income. And I think the reason why it has been successful is that whether it's me or whether it's Damian or whether it's the guys that help us to film and edit the podcast together, all of us totally believe and buy into what we're doing. I genuinely think that it is what people need to hear because it is empowering people to go and do great things.

A lot of my friends messaged me after you had Jonny Wilkinson on. They said that was deep, wasn't it? I had to listen to that back five times and I did the interview. For people that haven't heard it, what was the surprising lesson?

The bravery, really, from someone who won a Rugby World Cup as a certain person and now is a completely different person. I mean, I can give you a sort of salacious headline: he told us that winning the Rugby World Cup is no more important than doing the washing up.

The way that he squares that off in his mind is, he says, "What are you doing if you're playing rugby? Moving your body to achieve a goal. What are you doing if you're doing the washing up? Moving your body to achieve a goal. And if I make winning the Rugby World Cup more important or to hold more value than doing the washing up, and I'm no longer a rugby player, what am I? Less valuable because I'm no longer doing the thing that was more important?"

That was the sort of sentence that he was sharing with us, which I think is brilliant and brave. I can relate to it and I can understand it. But I think for me, the real revelation that came out of the Jonny Wilkinson episode is that when you strip everything back, he is someone who has totally changed from where he was when he was conquering the world.

Because when he was conquering the world as a rugby player, he thought he had to stress and struggle and sacrifice and fail. And now he realizes that stressing and struggling and sacrificing and failing leads to more stress and struggle and sacrifice and fail.

One of the amazing things he said was, when he released a book after winning the Rugby World Cup, he wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a spike in mental health cases from people that read that book. Because the book was saying, "You've got to struggle, you've got to really struggle in life to be successful."

I think that is something that I, when we first started the High Performance Podcast, I loved it when people spoke to me about the battle and the struggle and the strive and the sacrifice and the late nights and the early starts. Because I wanted people at home to go, "Yeah man, I'm going to work harder, I'm going to commit more, I'm going to sacrifice more." Now I think that is so, so wrong. That is the total antithesis of the message I now want my podcast to give to people.

It's tough, isn't it? Because it's hard to find someone who's been really successful at the very top of their game, whether it's business or sport, that hasn't done that. I've contended with this idea as well. When I started putting content out there, especially when I was really young, like 18, I was bragging about how late I was staying up. I was like, "Look at me at 4:00 AM and I'm still working." I was doing that because I was trying to portray an image that I was a superhuman or something.

Then I got to the point where I probably flipped the other way because of public pressure. The world now thinks that if you go on the High Performance Podcast and say "hard work really, really matters," you will be taken out. You are an asshole for saying that because you're going to make people depressed and anxious and you're a "hustle porn" star.

And then I got to another place, which is: if it's the truth, it's the truth. And I'm comfortable with the truth. The most successful people you'll encounter at the very top of their industries worked like hell to get there. It's Will Smith, Sir Clive Woodward, Elon Musk. That's a very consistent theme. But what I've come to do over the years is detach that from happiness, first and foremost, because it doesn't necessarily mean they're happier. And then also redefine what success is. Success can be being a great parent.

What is it to you, then?

It has to be happiness. That's my answer. It has to be. Because you can still have the hard work and you can still have the sacrifice, but you don't have the struggle. That was the mistake I made. I thought the struggle was part of the hard work and part of the early starts and late finishes and sacrificing some things. That's what I thought the High Performance Podcast was about, but it isn't. It's about happiness, and you can still get up at five.

I probably take too much on and I probably get up earlier than I need to and I go to bed later than I need to, but I am so happy. And that's what it has to be. It can't be happiness at the detriment of others' happiness. It has to be being happy, content with yourself, and spreading that happiness. And that again is something that Jonny Wilkinson spoke about which for me has been one of the biggest revelations.

Being absolute present. Absolutely, totally present. So when I'm here with you, my phone is down on the floor and it's actually on silent, but it should be off. Because I need to be totally present with you right now. Because what's happened is gone. What's yet to happen, which is me going off to do a game at BT Sport, is a story. I can write that in my head if I like, but I'm probably going to get it wrong because it hasn't happened yet exactly the way the day's going to go.

So I need to look you in the eye right now, and I can now promise you that on this podcast, I am absolutely here with you. And it might be that in half an hour I leave, but that's cool because when then we're done and I'm then traveling, then I'm totally present and I'm into that.

That is a really important thing that has again been a mindset change for me on the High Performance Podcast. Maybe now I sit and talk to you, maybe this whole thing is like a totally selfish exercise for me, because I must have said four or five times that this podcast has rewritten the way that I see the world and the way that I operate. I think maybe I want this podcast to be messages to my kids.

I talk already about my anxiety. Probably another of my anxieties is how much longer am I going to be on the earth? You never know what's around the corner. I love the fact that if it all ended for me as I walk out onto Shoreditch High Street today and a car comes along, what can my wife say to my kids? "You don't know your dad very well. Listen to these 30 episodes of the High Performance Podcast. There's your dad. That's him."

You walk out of here today, then, and a bus comes—boom. It's over. What are the things in life you would regret not having done more of?

Traveling with the kids, probably, but they're only little, they're only young. It's such a hard question for me because I think probably maintaining relationships with people has always been an issue for me. Because I failed my A-levels at school, so all my mates went off to uni, so that was kind of lost because they went off having fun and I redid them.

I've always found that one of the issues with trying to really be present is that you're totally present in that part of your world at that moment. And so I was then totally plugged into life on Children's BBC. And then I got this amazing opportunity at Formula One and I was totally plugged into my life in Formula One. And then I got a big opportunity at BT Sport and I had to make that work, so then I was totally plugged into my new producers and my new colleagues.

I had a conversation with someone the other day and they said, "Who are your real friends?" That's a hard question, that, for me, once I move beyond my wife. Because I've got four or five mates who I'm close with, but they live on my street. I've only lived there for four years. I might name a couple of parents on the school run; my kids have only gone to that school for four years. I'd name a couple of people I run my production company, Whisper, with, but that's only been going less than a decade. I'd now probably class Damian Hughes, who I do the High Performance Podcast with, but I've done that for less than a year. But I'm in this. And maybe that is possibly the only regret. But maybe I don't need to hold on to people for too long. Maybe we have to accept that people come and go from our lives and that's okay.

And do you think it's because you haven't prioritized investing in those relationships as much?

I think it's because I'm always too invested in the thing that I'm doing at that moment. I am so absolutely committed to Whisper, Coral Eyewear, the High Performance Podcast, BT Sport, my kids, my wife, and my family. There isn't an awful lot left, right?

I guess the better question to ask would be: are you happy? Because if that is the ultimate goal, society will tell you to live, have loads of friends, and do this and have this car. But then the most important question is: are you happy?

Happiest I've ever been. I think the happiest I've ever been. I love what I do. I really like work. I like getting up early. I like having five or six things on the burn all the time. I like having a whole page of jobs that I'm going to do.

Other people are not like that. My wife is the opposite. She's got four or five jobs and she's like, "Oh man, I feel so stressed, I've got all this stuff." Whereas sometimes I sit there and I'm not making a list of big things on the horizon, and I need to have a lot of them. And again, maybe I give a C to everything and I'd be better to have fewer things and give them all an A. Matthew McConaughey tells a great story about cutting off two of his big businesses because he was giving a B to five things and he wanted to be an A in three things.

The guests you've had on your podcast, all these wonderful people you've met—do you sometimes get the impression that some of them aren't that happy?

Yes. Yes. It's really interesting. I totally get that everyone is in it for different reasons, aren't they? We spoke to Sean Wayne, who is one of the most successful rugby league managers in the UK. If someone wanted to get into the High Performance Podcast and they wanted a first podcast to listen to, don't just go for the big names. Sean Wayne gave us the most moving and revelatory interview.

In his broad Northern accent, he said, "I'm not bothered about being happy. I don't care about 'appy." Happiness was not his thing. As soon as he achieved something, within moments it's about the next thing. We sort of broke it down that he was very badly abused by his dad as a kid—physically punched in the face by a big man often. And his entire life, his entire energy comes from wanting to redress the balance.

He's now a rugby league coach, the England rugby league coach, because he has this deep-seated desire to make the lives of other people better. Now, he might personally never be happy after the story and the path that he's been through, but he's definitely making other people happy. And he is also totally comfortable with not being happy.

Now, that's not everyone's story—that's his story. But I certainly think that we, like in the past, we've thought that success and happiness are mutually exclusive. "What do you want to be? You want to be successful or you want to be happy?" How wrong are we to think like that? The very flame of success should be happiness. That should be the absolute nub, the crux of everything. What's the point otherwise?

I get that a lot with guests that I've had on. They seem to be very neurotically obsessed with the next thing and the next thing. When you ask them to pause and reflect on when this ends or why they're doing it, it always seems to flick back to their childhood.

Eddie Hearn was the same. I was talking to him about his aspirations for the future with Matchroom. He says, "I want to sell for five billion and we're going to do this." And I said, "But why do you want to sell for five billion? You're happy now." He goes, "Yeah, well, we should be selling for five billion. That's what I want to do." And I go, "But why does that matter?" And he goes back to his dad when he was younger. He goes back to the fact that his dad used to criticize him and didn't give him praise. It's weird that those early moments have driven this obsessive desire to just keep climbing an ever-ending mountain.

It's never as good as you think it will be, though, you know? When you achieve those things that you want to achieve. The biggest thrill I've ever had was when I spent £9,750 on a green MGF. It was my first-ever car. I can still remember the number plate: P710 NJN.

I looked at that car. I bought it from an elderly gentleman in Colchester. I went to his house and I got a banker's draft. I was working on Children's BBC and I remember he took me out to his garage. You know those old fluorescent light strips? They flicker "tick-tick-tick" before they come on.

I remember as vivid as the day it happened, the light flickering and just lighting the car up for a second and then it goes dark. I looked at it and I was like, "Holy... I cannot believe it." Now, fast-forward to where I am now: successful TV presenter, invested in Coral Eyewear, run a podcast, BT Sport, have two beautiful children, have a production company.

The kids and my personal relationships are aside from this because that is on a deeper level than anything else. But in terms of material successes, nothing—and I mean nothing, man—nothing has come close to spending less than ten grand on a green MGF. So you've got to enjoy the journey, you've got to enjoy the travel, because a) it's not as good when you get there as you think it would be, and b) you spend an awful lot more time getting there than arriving.

You have to answer this totally honestly. You have totally left Social Chain now, with money in the bank that you wouldn't have had if you hadn't walked away from that business, right? What is more thrilling to you: to look at your bank account now and see the number in the bank account, or to know the journey you went on with Social Chain?

Oh, yeah, of course. The bank could be double, triple, quadruple, ten times—it wouldn't matter.

Now, if I said to you in Manchester when you were having to nab frozen pizzas just to feed yourself, and I said, "Listen dude, you can either absolutely work your nuts off for the next 10 years—build a business, hang out with people, develop some good relationships—or I'll just bang 100 mil in your bank account today."

I'd have said 100 mil! Give me the 100 mil! And now here you are, you've got the 100 mil, and the thrill came from the journey. I'm always conscious of my own hindsight bias. Because it seems to be the case that every broke person who goes on the journey to get rich ends up being successful, they get the money and they go, "It doesn't matter."

But it's a wonderful thing to say when you have it, right? Part of the reason it doesn't matter is because there's so much of it now. It really mattered when I was stealing those pizzas and when I was going behind the sofas in this public house for the pound coins. I found 13 pound coins, so I went back the next day. It really, really mattered. In fact, it was all that mattered in that moment. So I'm super conscious of that bias that we have.

And you should be, by the way. I honestly know that there are people that would listen and go, "Hold on a minute, middle-class white guy from a lovely village in Norfolk. Yeah, you've had a few issues with mental health and bullying and the death of my grandmother, which was quite tragic and things like that, but you haven't really struggled."

So then I think it's important that we've done an interview that we haven't put out yet for the podcast with Siya Kolisi, the first-ever Black Springboks captain. He tells us a story about not being able to sleep at night because his stomach hurt so much because he was so hungry. So his grandmother gave him sugar water just to get him to school so he could have a day at school. And she died in his arms at eight years old.

When he sits on the podcast and says, "You will go through some really dark and difficult, horrendous times," he grew up in the most deep poverty you could imagine in South Africa. When he sits there and says you can get through it and you can use it as a flame and a fire, that I think is when you listen.

I also completely agree that the things that have mattered most to me professionally, especially as I reflect, have been doing work I love, but then doing it with people I love and a mission that's worthwhile. People talk about this topic of burnout a lot. I tend to believe that burnout is somewhat inevitable if you're doing things that you don't intrinsically love doing, especially if you're doing it with people you don't really love as well. I feel like in any facet of your life, if you're doing it too much and you don't enjoy it, the outcome is burnout. Is burnout a topic that's been prevalent on your podcast?

No. I suppose partly the reason why burnout hasn't come up very often is because we're talking to people who are in the midst of their successes or who have been successful. And they love what they're doing. They're full of passion. Whereas people who have perhaps tried to do something that wasn't quite right and have suffered burnout and it hasn't worked, we don't know about them because the burnout ended the dream.

That's such a good point. Passion is everything. You said you spoke to Eddie Hearn—what's his podcast? *No Passion, No Point*. He is a great advocate of finding something that you believe in. But I also get that, again, you had a real passion for what you do. I honestly have such a deep love and a passion for all the things that I'm involved in. Because if I didn't, then I wouldn't do them, or I'd try and find something else.

But there are times in my life where I've done certain things—like, I don't, as a TV presenter, you often get asked to do like corporates: standing up at awards and things like that, and you need to welcome people up on stage and shake hands, have a photo. I find them a real struggle. I don't know why, I just don't get a thrill out of doing those things.

So that's a good thing for me because I've noticed that's something I don't like. One of the really good ways of finding "you" is to look at all the things that is not you. Who are the people that don't make you feel good? What are the days when you feel drained and exhausted? What are the trips or the phone calls or the conversations or the lunches where you leave thinking, "Phew, every time I see that person, I feel like this"? If you can see the stuff that isn't good for you and strip that stuff away, you will eventually—and it might take a while—be left with who you are.

I don't think you—you can obviously get tired and you can be ill and you can have problems—but I think with real passion, I don't think you suffer burnout. Every day I seem to get this—so you've not got kids yet, right?

I've got a dog! A beautiful little dog fast at my feet.

When my daughter was born and I love her with every piece of my heart, right? I had this real fear that when my son was born, where's the love going to come from? You're joking! No, it's a quite common thing for parents. My daughter had every single bit of love in my body. So with my wife, obviously, we're really super close, but the love for your child feels very different from the moment that child is born.

And I could not have loved my daughter not 1% more. So then my son is about to be born. My daughter's gone off to the grandparents and I'm watching my wife in labor thinking, "I've got nothing left for Sebastian. What's this about?" Sebastian's born, and within two seconds, I love him equally. So there's no diminishing of the love for my daughter—not one bit—but all this new love has just appeared out of nowhere and I could love my son exactly the same. How is that possible?

And it is exactly the same when you have a real passion or a real love for something. Every day that I get up and I'm making phone calls or I'm having conversations or I'm brainstorming or blue-sky thinking or thinking about guests or heading to do live television, it's all filled up—the cup is filled up again. I'm full, I'm ready to go. I don't feel like the cup is draining slowly because I love the stuff that I'm doing.

And that's a great point because I think people tend to believe that passion is a singular thing. They're searching for it aimlessly like it's an Easter egg hidden somewhere. And it's not about passion; you can't drain your passion. You can have multiple passions.

You've met a ton of high-profile people in your presenting career but also from your podcast. I'm sure you've come across a bunch of assholes as well. I'm not going to ask you to name them.

Holly Tucker on our podcast came out with a great one. She said, "I'd rather have a hole than an asshole." In other words, I'd rather hang out with no one than hang out with someone that I don't like. But then Matthew McConaughey said, "Do you want an asshole or an idiot? Give me the asshole, because at least you know where you stand."

Really? Interesting. So he was like, at least—and I do relate to that somewhat. The people that I really struggle with in my life are the people who one day you see them and they're like your best mate, the next day it's like you've never met them before. I do struggle with that. I like to know where I stand with people.

I'm cool if you and me want to have like a distant professional relationship and you'll send me a text saying Happy New Year, hope the podcast goes well, maybe hook up sometime in 2021, and we never see each other socially and you come back on High Performance, I'll come back on here—that's absolute, that is cool.

What I don't want is: "Hey, let's have a coffee! Do you want to meet up in London? Yeah, great! Oh man, it's so nice to see you! How's things? How's life?" You chat a bit more. "Have you got a partner? How's your dog? How's your life?" And then you hear nothing for six months, and you think, "Whatever happened to that dude?" And then they reappear again.

I'm so sorry for not texting you back! I feel like you're shouting at me!

There's the truth right there! There's the difficult thing for me—not knowing where I stand with people. I don't want to be everyone's best friend, but I do want meaningful relationships with people. And they can be meaningful from a distance or super intense.

On that point of assholes as well, I think—what made you ask that? Oh, just—it's one of the things I think. Do you know what it is? I remembered one day, you meet a lot of people when you do this podcasting thing and you have an initial perception of how they're going to be, and then you meet them and sometimes they're assholes.

I actually don't think I've had anyone on the podcast that was an asshole, but I have had experiences. I remember this one day I got on this plane—I think I was flying Emirates or Virgin or something—and in front of me I saw that guy from... the "Food Guy." The guy that eats all the food on TV. Someone give me his name.

Oh, um, yeah, *Man v. Food* guy. Adam Richman.

Yeah, *Man v. Food* guy. I'm on the show but I don't know his name. And I don't care about saying this. We run this huge food channel at Social Chain, so we have tens of millions of followers on a food channel. So I text the food team, "Oh my God, the guy is on the plane!" They said, "Oh, go up and ask him a question," which is a question we always ask guests on our food channel.

So I went over to ask him this question. I was sat in business; he was sat in business as well. And he's just, he just—he looks at me and goes, "Listen, give me a second, okay?" And I'm like, "Whoa!" So I walked back to my chair, and I have to tell the 500 people in this company group, "Oh, so I went up to him, and this person that you all absolutely love, he's just cussed me out." And he will never know the impact he had on me or the 500 people that I then told, and also the hundreds of thousands of people that I'm telling right now.

Have you got to the point now, though, where you're brave enough to call that sort of stuff out? Because I think that is the important thing.

When he does it, to his face? Yeah. For me, that would be like ego. Because it would be like, "Do you know who the fuck I am?" or it'd be like, "Why are you saying that to me?" See, for me, the peace was like: no reaction. Because there was no win. There was no win in me calling him out. I wasn't going to win. So the win for me was saying, "Okay, no worries," and me going back to my chair. And also not letting it ruin my day.

But I am sure you—the reason I asked you the question is because you have tons of guests in your presenting career but also your podcast. When you encounter an asshole, I guess, how do you deal with it?

You just know that you're there for a stop, not a stay, I think. And you—does it break your heart a little bit sometimes when it's someone that you admired? Yeah, I suppose so. I suppose I don't worry too much about it because I just think, "You know what? You can—you're just not for me."

And also, like, who am I to sort of judge whether their behavior is assholery? If it's clearly rude and unfair and unkind, absolutely. I now feel like—look, I'm 42 and I'm a parent, and I want my kids to operate in a world where they can be themselves and they can't be bullied or pushed around. I think I'm old enough now—and I definitely wasn't like this a few years ago—where I can hold my chin up and say that behavior is really not acceptable.

Would you call someone—you would? But I wouldn't do it in an arrogant "look at me, I'm a sort of being a dick" way. I'd just say, "Listen, I just think that behavior isn't acceptable."

And have you done that?

Um, yeah.

To someone you work with?

In your presenting career? Yeah. Name and address? No, I'm joking, I'm joking. And actually, you know what you find is that often—I've done it twice and both times they've gone, "Yeah, look, I'm really sorry, that is actually unacceptable."

I mean, we had an interesting experience because my wife used to work in production. So she was a production secretary, which is not very high up the ladder of people in television. And I was a presenter. So she would be looking after security, taxis, tickets, logistics, clothing, call times—all the stuff that makes television happen but is not the glamorous side.

And the number of times that I would say, "I met this person today, aren't they great?" and she'd be like, "Really?" And then we would meet those people and I'd be like, "Oh yeah, I think you know my wife, Harriet." And they were like, "Oh, right! Yeah! Hi! Nice to see you. You guys will have to come round sometime for some food." And Harriet's like, "That is not how they were when they thought I was just sorting out their travel."

Really? And that is the definition of an asshole.

Yes, I think it is, because you just treat everyone the same, man. And they're treating you well because you can potentially benefit them in some way. I don't know, it's weird, isn't it? Like, why? I've got a job on the television—why treat me any differently? I'm no more important than anyone—it's stupid. That is what really annoys me.

We see that in our—I saw that in my business over the years and I came to believe that even with me leaving the business, it won't break the business. But I do believe that—so I believe one person leaving a business doesn't break it, and you can apply this to your relationships, your life, your friendship circle—but an asshole staying can.

Me leaving the business, I don't actually think will be as detrimental as a couple of assholes staying in the business. Not that there are any, but you know what I mean.

Yeah, don't you think though—and I—like this is like, it sounds naive and childish and a bit childish probably for a 42-year-old bloke that has a decent career and runs a few businesses—but like, I honestly think that we do have the power to make the world positive and happy despite all the issues.

Because all you have to do is worry about your immediate circle. And that is why I get frustrated with people who spread negativity and criticism and I just—I've just got no space in my life now for negativity from people. Because I just think if, let's say that I know seven people and I just say, "You know what? I'm going to really radiate a positive energy. I'm going to lift them up. I'm not going to be critical. I'm going to do everything I can to make them feel like a million dollars."

The only agreement is that they have to do the same. And you say to those people, "Listen, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to be really super positive and I'm going to do everything I can to help you, and if you ever need something, I'm going to be the person that comes and helps you out. All I'm asking is that you do it for the people in your circle."

Be the change. Think how quickly that would radiate. My seven—so if I go, if each of them goes to seven... you know what I mean? It feels stupid, doesn't it?

For me, that's what karma is. I don't believe in wishy-washy karma as in, "Oh, if I help a lady, then someone's going to help me in the future." But I think from a logical perspective, if I help everyone I encounter, maybe they'll be more helpful, and that can make its way back round to maybe my niece, you know?

True! Exactly. True. I just can't see any benefit to criticism and negativity and driving other people down. Someone that gets—feels better for driving someone else further down is like, for me, the absolute epitome—they are the worst of the worst.

Do you ever get jealous? Be completely honest.

Yeah. Um, I get jealous, but I only ever get jealous through comparison, and that is ridiculous, you know?

But is it the nasty—is it the nasty jealousy where you're like, "Oh, why have they gotten—"?

Yeah, probably, yeah. But you can—but I think that is innate. I think that is almost—there I am giving up responsibility again for someone that talks about 100% responsibility! But I think it is innate in human nature to compare and to contrast and to look at someone else.

So it's not a very long experience for me. I will look at someone and I'll go, "Hmm." But hey, listen, I'm so happy and I've got all this—and actually, sometimes I look at life as a graph, and you literally don't know where life is going to take you.

So let's say, like, the people that I now sit with in a TV studio—like, I sit with—let's say when I had Robin van Persie, Steven Gerrard, and Rio Ferdinand were all the pundits on BT Sport. There was a time where all three of those were three of the most famous footballers in the country, earning phenomenal sums of money, competing on the world stage, representing their country.

And I was a guy post-A-level failure trying to sort of find a job and earning £6,000 a year. Now, there was a time where they were there and I was there. And our graphs over the time have done—and whatever's happened, look where I've ended up: sitting next to them on a TV studio.

Now, it may well be that they go up there again and something happens to me and I go down here, or it might be that I do that and they do that. But you never know where that graph is going to go. And that is what I think is—that for me is one of the most exciting things about this world that we live in. You are only one step away from a phone call where someone goes, "Hey, guess what?" and your graph goes "shoo!" So don't worry about where other people are on that graph, because it might be in five years' time you're right alongside them.

I guess that's where that hate—a lot of the hate comes from. So if you take the jealousy feelings that even you have as one of the nicest people I know and you just multiply it by ten, and that's the—people feel a certain way about their lives and how their lives are going.

Yeah, but that's because it's chucked in our faces all the time. What is Instagram if it isn't a tool for comparison? What is it? "Why are you having a great day and...?" And we're jealous of that. We're guilty of it—making other people jealous of what we do. We went out for a couple of days away as a family to a lovely hotel called Cliveden.

And it was lovely, but the kids, for some reason, were just badly behaved. It does happen sometimes. And we had this meal—it was breakfast, actually—and they were like, it took ages for the food to come and the kids were like climbing the wall. And I was having to say to the waiter, "Listen, I'm really sorry, but like we've been waiting for 20 minutes, which is fine for me and my wife but the kids, you know, they need their..." And it was a posh hotel where you try to say to your kids, "Just stay at the table, sit nicely, don't make too much noise."

And then at the end of it, I was stressed, man. And I said, "Hey, I tell you what, the family will want to know where we are." So I get my phone out and I go, "Kids, kids, just smile!" And we take a photo and we put it—we have a family WhatsApp group with Harriet's mom and dad, my mom and dad, all the cousins, all the aunts and uncles, right? We're all smiling, everything looks great. "Just had a lovely breakfast at the hotel," I said.

And then we get loads of messages back, like from people like my sister going, "Oh, your life always looks perfect," and my brother going, "Oh, another great day for you and your..." And I think, actually, yes! I've just given them an absolute falsification of what my Sunday morning at Cliveden House was like. That was a stressful hour! And I've taken the one thing that wasn't stressful. Why have I put that in the group? Why haven't I just gone, "Hey guys, hope you're all having a good Sunday. Cool, we've just had a shit half an hour here having some breakfast, but hey, don't we all?" That's what we all do all the time! Why else do all the people you follow on Instagram put the things they put out there?

I think the world has somewhat flipped—is flipping back the other way. In the sense that when we all started Instagram, it was this new thing, you had these filters and it was like "show the best holiday you've ever had in your life to the world." That was kind of the thing you'd get rewards for.

And that represents, in terms of being able to relate to that, it's like 0.0% of the viewer's life. Like, most of our lives, the 99% of our lives, as I've said on this podcast before, is like eating the pot noodle in bed. And now I see that the win with personal branding and building an Instagram page is the antithesis of showing that.

It's like: "I've just woken up with my face covered in spots." In fact, the last two podcasts ago we had Krissy on here, who's like a superstar influencer-entrepreneur. I was trying to understand why her community are so engaged with her, so engaged with her versus even mine or other people's.

It's because she wakes up in the morning and she goes, "My face is covered in spots. Oh my God, I'm not going to put the filter on today." And you see the spots on her face and stuff like that. And then she'll cry on her Instagram story because her best friend lost her mother.

And you really can resonate with that. You can—and also, the amount of supply on social media of that realness is low. Demand is super high because it represents the 99% of our lives. Supply is super low. And people—Joe Wicks is the same. He will tell you everything. "I feel like shit today," and whatever. And people just—and that's the thing I think you can form a bond with, a real deep bond.

So even as I reflect on my Instagram now, I said to my team earlier this week, I'm like, "I need to go on my Instagram story more and do a lot of the stuff that I do on the podcast, which is just like telling you the shit stuff too." And so I say this, you know, if you want to build a personal brand, I'm like, you know, you really need to get comfortable with the—

Would that make you happy though? Let's go back to where we began. Would it make you happy?

Yeah, because I know that it would not make me happy. My Instagram is not a lie—it is real, but it's real with the things that I choose to share, basically. Do you know what I mean?

By the way, I've had no lunch. Can I indulge?

Knock yourself out! It actually arrived this morning, so...

What is it, this one?

This is berry Huel.

Oh, I've not had one. I was pleased for you though, when I saw that you'd got Huel to sponsor you. I thought, "Just great synergy."

I was panicking there that I'd undone it and I was going to flip Huel all over your lovely rug and here. It doesn't matter, that'll be a cool piece of promo. Nutritionally complete drink.

Yeah, I think it's great, man. So I've eaten nothing today. What's the time? It's twenty past one, so this is perfect for me now. This is my lunch and my breakfast. Try it and let me know what you think.

This is my favorite flavor of all.

That's good.

And if you have this all day—which I don't know if that's to be recommended—but all of your sort of essential minerals are in there, vitamins, high in protein, so it's 20 grams of protein at the same time, slow-release carbs.

Spilled a bit on your really lovely glass table.

It's fine, don't worry. Low sugar, gluten-free.

Yeah, it's great. That's nice. It's lovely.

And I drink it because I skip meals. That's how I first came across it.

Well, I'm trying to intermittently fast because I've seen other people's six-packs on social media and they make me feel... at me! Okay, they make me feel like I just need to, you know...

Right, why do you feel the need to share more of yourself on Instagram? What's the benefit?

So yeah, so the benefit is, if I share more of my truth—all the tough stuff, which is pretty much why I started the podcast in the first place—I feel that way I'm helping a lot of people. And do I enjoy helping people and getting them to overcome their problems? Yes.

But you do that already on this podcast, right?

Yeah, but I don't do it on Instagram. And I think, do I want to have a deeper connection with my audience on Instagram? Yes. What am I doing on Instagram? Predominantly just posting quotes, to be honest. So if I want to have a deeper connection with my audience on Instagram, then I should go deeper with them as I do on this podcast, because the podcast audience are like a cult. You know, they're super engaged because of the depth and the realness. So I think it would make me happy in the long run.

There must be a reason I don't do it.

That's a good point, this. I mean, it's been a huge revelation for me doing a podcast because when you're a football presenter, you don't get nice messages on Instagram. You don't get like an engaged core saying, "This resonated with me, that resonated with me."

Partly because you're not the story—you're there to facilitate former pros to be the superstars. I mean, I liken my job on the football to like being a referee. If I'm not seen, that's probably a good thing. I make them look good, I make them feel good, and people—let's be totally frank—tune in to watch a game.

More people will tune in for Man United than will tune in for Norwich City. More people won't tune in for me because I'm just the facilitator. Whereas with the podcast, the nicest thing has been this genuine conversation, connection, like creation of a proper community.

And that's been a totally new thing to me. I thought I knew everything there was to know about broadcasting and, you know, with a million followers on Twitter and an Instagram account and running a TV production company and being a TV presenter. I knew what it was about, I knew how to connect to people. Never known anything like it. Never seen feedback like it. Never had fulfillment like it. It's amazing.

It is. It is amazing. There is something crazy about podcasting, though, versus all other channels. And I think it's that depth. The messages you get—on if I post something on Instagram, I'll get a "can totally relate." The podcast, you get a like... essay about, you know, they return with their story.

Yeah, yeah. I totally see what you're saying. And it's depth begets depth. Yeah, I totally agree.

And it stops it from—like, because when I first started the High Performance Podcast, I wanted it just to be me opening up amazing people to benefit other people. And I will now admit part of the thrill of that podcast is seeing the response and seeing the reaction. And I'm not foolish enough to think that isn't my ego at work—it absolutely is my ego that likes it.

But it is amazing when you see, "Hi, I listened to your podcast and I changed jobs after wanting to do it for 20 years. Hi, I listened to your podcast and I've quit doing something that's been bad for me for my whole life. I've reached out to create relationships with people that I allowed to die from listening to our podcast." Bloody hell.

What's the most emotional moment you've had with a guest that you can recall on the podcast? Is there a particular moment that choked you up a little bit?

Yeah, there will be. There's quite a few times that I've kind of edged towards tears. And I think someone that I've already mentioned, Sean Wayne. When someone talks to you about that sort of devastation of being physically abused by a parent.

And the—I suppose what was emotional for me was the learning during the interview with Sean. And I knew very little about him before we spoke—the learning that all of the good stuff he's done... he talks about if he's got an issue with one of his players, he doesn't just have a chat with them after training; he turns up at their house in the evening and says, "What's the deal, man? How can I help? How can I solve this?"

And he is now a parent himself and a really loving and caring parent. To have the start in life that Sean had and for your whole life to be about helping other people—that was a hugely moving conversation with him.

Yeah, I think all of the guests I've had that have moved me in the same way. It's almost identical.

It's nice, isn't it? I don't know whether you're like this with podcasts, but I love that we have footballers on and don't talk about football. We have rugby players on and don't really talk about rugby. We just talk about... it is my podcast is a podcast about life exactly like this one is.

And we were talking before we started recording today about the desire to try and avoid the typical talking points with guests. And I think this is maybe just a general point for people that are trying to start a podcast. There are so many podcasts out there. What would your tips be then for someone who's considering starting a podcast, from what you've done in your 30 or, you know, you've recorded I think a total of 50 so far, but there's 30 that are live. What tips would you give to someone who's thinking of starting their own?

First of all, go for it. Because I honestly, what I honestly was this close to not doing it. The great thing about podcasts that I didn't have in my life was ownership. So I'd spent my career working for Children's BBC, working for Formula One and the BBC, working for the Premier League on BT Sport.

And I sat down with someone and they said, "How's your career?" And I said, "Yeah, it's great, like I'm really happy, I love doing the football and love being with the players and everything." And they said, "What if you got a phone call tomorrow to say that that had ended, what would you be left with?"

And I was like, "Hmm, don't know, have to go and find another job." They said, "So what do you own? Of all these years of graft and hard work, what's yours?" And the answer was nothing. And then their next question—they obviously knew what they were talking about—they said, "What do you really want to do?"

And I said, "Well, I don't really care if Liverpool beat Man United or Norwich City beat Ipswich, not really. But I love the effort and the graft and I love sitting with the pundits, I love the way that Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard watch a game of football, I love how they turn up looking smart, or they bring their own food in little plastic containers still. Or the day that I first met Lewis Hamilton, and he walked in the room and he took off his watch and he didn't just chuck his watch on the side. He got it and he closed up the clasp and he put it down and he moved it. And then he got his little bracelet off and he went 'clink clink clink' and he took his—"

I just looked at that and I thought, "Ah, that desire for perfection, that elite mindset mentality." I said to them, "That's what I want. I want to speak to elite performers and elite thinkers. Because I think that everyone can benefit from that. Everyone can think and operate and perform better because there's no tricks, there's no secrets. You just need to have the passion and go out and do it."

And they said, "Well, then that's what you should do: do a podcast." So that was it. Right, great, I'm doing a podcast. And then I mentioned it to a couple of people and they went, "Why? You can't do a podcast." I was like, "Why?" "Because everyone does podcasts! Like, there's literally so many podcasts! You can't—you're not going to make a splash. There's thousands of podcasts."

And then I rang an old friend of mine from Children's BBC and she is—I don't know if I've ever even told her this—but she's the reason I do the podcast: Fearne Cotton, who does *Happy Place*. I said, "Hey, I'm thinking of doing a podcast." Now, she is such a nice person; she is not the sort of person to go, "Oh, hold on a minute, a rival podcast." She'd never even considered that. She went, "Oh my God, you'd be great at doing a podcast!"

We spoke about what it was about, and then I said to her, "But my issue is I just think that like there's loads of them out there." And then she was the one that said, "Look, we worked together at Children's BBC. Television had been invented for 50 years. There must have been hundreds of channels, thousands of programs. Did you think, 'I'm not going to work in telly because there's already loads of TV programs'? No, of course you didn't. You just thought, 'Well, I'm going to work in telly and make my mark.'"

She said you need to do exactly the same with your podcast. So the first thing is you have to do your podcast. You have to go out and do it.

And that's the biggest challenge, though, isn't it? Starting. It's just in every facet of life. Entrepreneurs contact me and I'm like, the biggest risk you face of all the things that might stop you—

But I think you can do a podcast risk-free though, you know? You can spend a very minimal sum of money, if any money at all, on the equipment.

100%. Oh, so cheap! Not even—you could start a great—you could do a great podcast in terms of sound quality with less than £100.

The risk, though, is overthinking it to the point of procrastination, to the point of paralyzing yourself. I think in all facets of life—business—my DMs are full of people that are like, "Steve, I want to start a business, I have an idea, I want to start a podcast or this project, but there's just this one problem which is preventing me starting."

And I always say the biggest risk of the success of your business, the number one thing that's going to stop you from becoming a billionaire, honestly, is the probability that you'll just never start. And also that you'll think you need all of the answers to all of the questions you have before you start. "Well, I don't know this, I don't have the funding, I don't..." Like, when I started my business, I was 18, didn't know the word "entrepreneur," no money, went on Google and typed in how to build a website. Spent three months Googling it. But that was me starting, you know?

And I think it's the same with podcasting. I'm like, my first episode was dog shit! I was downstairs in some cupboard—

It's fine! In telly, we say the first is the worst. You know, that's the way it is, that's the way it has to be. But the point is, you got going, you started. And I think you need to begin, and then you need to be consistent and you need to keep going and don't expect instant success and instant gratification.

But I think the other thing for any—like, I get a lot of people sending me letters saying "I want to be on the television." And I always reply in the positive because I always say, well, someone has to be doing my job in 20 years' time. When I'm 62, I will not be presenting the Premier League on BT Sport. I just won't be. Someone has to be; could be you. Why not make it you? Make the decision now that it's going to be you that's the next well-known sports TV broadcaster.

And then I remind them that when I started out in 1998-99, to be on the telly, to be a broadcaster, you actually needed a job. That was not very easy to go and get. Now, you can pick up your phone and you're a broadcaster. You can have a YouTube channel, you can have an Instagram handle, you can have a Twitter page, you can have a podcast, as long as you've got a passion.

Because you then funnel everything into that passion and everything feeds everything else. So the Instagram handle points people towards the podcast, the podcast is fantastic, so people go and watch the podcast that you've recorded on YouTube and then you start to build an audience there and you make a little bit of money and it slowly starts to build. Be consistent but have the passion.

Have the thing that's different. Like, I will get maybe 10 times a week: "Hi Jake. Um, I just wonder whether you would come and be on our podcast. We just want to talk about your journey and how you got to where you are now. It'd be really great to have a chat." And you roll your eyes.

And it's like, man, you've got to be better than that! Everyone can go and have a conversation about your journey and the highs and the lows and the struggles. What's the niche? What's the thing? What's the thing?

So tell me—what would someone have to say to you that has basically no listeners or is starting out that would make you go on their podcast?

Passion. It'd be absolutely, definitely about their passion. And I have done plenty of podcast interviews in the last year where there hasn't been a big audience, but I've really loved the fact that the person has come to me, known a lot about me, and said, "I really want to explore this particular area with you."

I think just the broad brushstroke of "Can we just talk about your inspiration and talk about your upbringing and talk about how you first got into broadcasting?" No! Let's—I'm a bit like this now in everything I do, like even when I'm broadcasting. I'm not interested in "Can Man United win the league?" I am much more interested in looking at one of the players—Marcus Rashford, for example—and having a really proper deep conversation with Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand.

Like, explain to me how hard it is for him to concentrate on football when he's got so many people criticizing him on social media for doing the school dinners? Or how difficult it is for him to run out at Old Trafford and really perform at a high level when he hasn't got 80,000 people there inspiring you and driving you on? How much of a difference does it really make to have the crowd at Old Trafford there? Like, that is a much, much more interesting conversation for me because it feels much more real than just the general stuff. So that would be my advice to people: make it really specific, make it really passion-based. Go for it.

And there's that bit you said about showing evidence that they've done their research on you. Because listen, people send emails inviting you onto a podcast or DMs, whatever, but most of our lives and the success of our lives, at least as I can recount it in my journey, has been predicated on me knowing how to ask someone for something that they really didn't have a huge, clear incentive to give me. But asking in the right way.

So we're not just talking about inviting Jake onto a podcast here—we're talking about how you ask for something, how you knock on a door that maybe is a bit above you at that point.

I think that often you get a lot of respect there just for asking the question. And I think the other thing is for people to remember: when they're in our position, you've been in that position as well. Like, you have been there. And don't expect them to be perfect, by the way. Like, everything that you now find easy about sitting here and recording this podcast once you didn't find easy. You found it a struggle.

That's the really important point. And those people are often right at the beginning of their journey and they're finding their way. And why can't you give them 10 minutes? Even if you can't go on their podcast, Steven, why can't you just go, "You know what? Just give me your number. I'll give you 10 minutes." 10 minutes of your day is nothing. Could change their entire life.

So the problem is: there's a lot of people asking for 10 minutes. This is the problem. And if you add it up, then we don't have much time left for anything else. And I sometimes think to myself, if I gave all of these people 10 minutes, I wouldn't be the type of person that they'd be asking for 10 minutes from.

You can't do stuff you don't have time to do. But you probably can do 10 minutes once in a while. Couple of times a day.

The thing that annoys me with the DMs that I get—I get them every single day.

Would you do that? Would you?

Yeah, do you know what? I'm doing it anyway for—like, I told you about my friend that called me with a problem. Like, so I give him 20 minutes to solve the problem with him. I'm doing that all day every day. And my employees at Social Chain now that I've left contact me more than I think they did at the time when I was there, asking me how to solve problems with each other, with the company—what should we be doing? So I still feel like I'm mentoring a lot of people.

Don't always look for the instant value in stuff.

No, I know. That's super important. But when someone rings you and goes, "Um, Steven, look, I know I'm at Social Chain and I know I wasn't very high up the chain at Social Chain, but I know—and I know you've left—it's just... I fucking love what you did. Just a couple of quick questions, right?" You might look at it and go, "Phew, do you know what? Remember that person, I just haven't got the time, I've got to get in the gym, I've got all this..." Right. Let's say you did.

What you've done is you've seen the value to you in that moment of giving them 10 minutes of your time. What about if that person then goes on and thinks, "Wow, I've been so impressed by what I've done at Social Chain. I'm going to set up my own business. I'm going to do this." And suddenly the snowball effect comes. And then in a couple of years' time, you get the phone call, "Steven, I'd love for you to be on the advisory board of this business I set up because I actually set it up because you gave me a bit of inspiration a few years ago." There's the value you never see. If you don't give them the few minutes at that time. You hand it out, man.

I call it invisible PR. You never see it in the moment. You never see the impact it's having. But when it matters the most, it'll show up. So for example, the guy I told you about from *Man v. Food*—we have a huge food channel and we're looking for hosts for this food channel that would potentially get paid a ton of money.

And in that one moment, he will never see—he saw the value giving you 10 seconds in that moment and there was no value. But now he's clearly going to be excluded from the process of deciding who hosts the food channel just because of that 10-second moment. He'll never know, because it's invisible PR.

But I tell you what does make me annoyed is I'll get messages from someone and they'll say, "Steve, I just swear to God I got this message... I screenshotted and sent it to my friends because it's synonymous of the wrong approach. 'Steve, um, I'd love to know how you did what you did.'"

I've produced thousands of videos, podcasts, interviews, blogs on how I did what I did. There's actually a video called like "How I Built a 200 Million Pound Company" or whatever. And for me, when someone says that, I think you don't actually want to know. Because if you really wanted to know, you would have put that into Google or you would have put more effort in. You're being super lazy.

And then I said to the guy, "I said, you know what? Fine." Got the video where I explain how I did what I did what I did and I sent it to him. He goes, "Oh, you know, you should write a book." I have a book! It's like... and I'm like, maybe he just doesn't yet know what he doesn't know. And if you showed him these little bits in 10 years' time, he'd be embarrassed.

And maybe if you looked at some of the early interactions you had with people, you'd be embarrassed about what you—I know I would. Some of the emails I sent. I have a really old Hotmail account that I've had literally since the beginning of time. And I don't use it anymore, but sometimes it's quite cathartic for me to go back into that Hotmail account, zoom back to the very beginning.

We're talking about emails I was sending in 2001. I'm surprised, man. I get my tone wrong and I'm a bit pushy and I'm a bit ballsy and I think, "This doesn't sound or seem like me." I just think: benefit of the doubt, man. Always benefit of the doubt. And I'm not saying you need to bust your balls and spend two days giving this person a private seminar, but definitely do—I mean, I think it's great you replied. And just reply and go, "Listen, here's all the stuff that I've done." But when he replies and says "You should write a book," a) he's given you a compliment, b) he might be a bit nervous.

You know what the problem is? So there's thousands and thousands of people like this on a weekly basis. So my decision as to who to help or who to engage with is based on the message they send. And if someone says, "So um, so what is Social Chain?" Come on! If you just Googled it, if you clicked on the word in my bio, there's a description of exactly what it is. But people will still—and for me, that's laziness. Because if I—I can't think of a point in my life where if I wanted to know whether I was 16 or 26, whether if I wanted a piece of information, I would have just—my attempt at getting it would have just been to message the person, the public figure or whatever to say, "So how did you win that Formula One Championship, Lewis?" I would have at least tried, you know what I mean?

Do you think there's an issue here with like, with social media now, there's a complete lack of formality? So like when you and I were growing up and wanted to run a business that someone had set up and sold for hundreds of millions, you literally could not get to that person unless it was a real graft to get there.

So by the time you did manage to get an email address for some CEO of some big business, it'd been such a journey, you weren't going to lose the opportunity or waste the opportunity because it had taken you two or three months just to get to the point of being able to send something. Part of the issue now is that people who want information from you, literally this is how long it takes: "Steven Bartlett" (direct message) "Hi Steven, um, can I know about your business?" Like, that's taken me 30 seconds. That's how long it is. So that's why the quality of effort is so low because they're just used to it. That's how we now communicate with each other.

But then the other thing is, 20 years ago when you were trying to get hold of a CEO of a big business, there was quite a good filtration process. So that by the time you got the email address of that guy or that woman at the top of that business, it was a journey. You would have had 20 knock-backs, 10 or 15 set-backs, blah blah blah blah blah. So actually the person that got those email addresses were the grafters, man, and the ones that were finding the route and finding the path.

And it shows, though, that the most important thing, one of the 2020 growth hacks for your career, is knowing how to ask. Because everyone can—everyone has now got the email or the DM, but there's a real art in knowing what to say when you're in there.

And know that people like you are getting a lot of messages every day, all of the same quality. But that's great, because it's easy to stand out. It's a good thing. If you send me a voice note, that jumps up in the queue. If the voice note is well-researched, as you say, it jumps up in the queue further.

If you're asking me for something and you're making some attempt to acknowledge the fact that you know I don't have a lot of time, that also jumps you up in the queue because I think you—this person's a little bit more savvy and is being more realistic. But yeah, it makes a huge difference.

Coral. I want to talk about this. So eyewear brand. I received these lovely sunglasses in the post. And as I said to you before we got on air, I usually look a little bit weird in sunglasses, but this pair of sunglasses—and I'm not just saying this, and I actually said this behind your back as well, so this is how you know it's legit—they're great. I actually think I look quite cool in them. And I would never wear sunglasses like this normally because I couldn't find the right shape. Tell me all about Coral and what this is. This is your first sort of significant investment?

Yeah, it's the first time I've ever invested in a business, really. Obviously, Whisper Group is different because I was a founder and we set that up together. But I've wanted for a long time to do what I can to help people who are perhaps in a position where I can have some influence on their lives.

So about a year ago I set up a scholarship with the UEA, the University of East Anglia in Norwich. It's pretty simple: when people apply for the film and TV course, they're means-tested. They have to fill in a form so we can find out their family income, and if the family income is below a certain level, I will pay £5,000 a year every year that they're at university—so £15,000 over the time of their course—to make it affordable for them to go to uni.

It's literally my way of finding people who wouldn't get a chance in the TV industry. Similar to the ethos we have at Whisper: we want to lift up people that are under-represented. And I think there's amazing TV talent out there and they literally will never get the opportunity to have a TV career purely for financial means. And that really makes me sad.

So I set that up and then I had this great relationship with the UEA and they introduced me to a young guy called George Bailey. And he is a 19-year-old student—he's 20 now—at the UEA, and he had this idea for recycled eyewear. And it is literally taking fishing nets out of the sea, taking plastic out of landfill, and turning them into eyewear.

And I said, "You know what, George, that's a really good idea. I really like it, but it will be everywhere already because it's so simple." Because when we sort of ran through the numbers, there's something like 9 million pairs of eyewear sold in the UK every year. Almost all of them virgin plastic, covered in lacquer, full of glue, full of metal, bad for the environment, not doing any good for the planet at all.

So I sort of heard what he said and thought "this'll be happening already." And I was actually in London for a meeting with my agent in West London and I thought the perfect place for a recycled sustainable eyewear brand is West London. So I went into all of the high street eyewear places that you could possibly imagine—David Clulow and Sunglasses Hut and all of these others on Oxford Street and Bond Street—and I said the same thing every time I walked in: "Hi, can I see your range of recycled eyewear?"

Blank faces. "Can I see your green range, your sustainable range?" The same. Nothing in response. And I was straight on the phone to George. I said, "Listen, we need to make this happen. We really need to make this happen." And we're not the only brand in the world making eyewear from recycled material, but we're the only brand who have gone and got our own eyewear designer, so it's original design. It's handmade in a factory in Italy.

We then offset all the carbon, so when that gets delivered to you, there's not been a single hit on the planet from carbon and the plastic has been taken out of the world to create those. The lenses are infinitely recycled and we have a system where you send the lenses or the whole eyewear back to us and we can recycle them so it all goes again.

So the phrase I use is "planet positive." It's not just like not putting pollution into the planet; it's actively removing plastic and turning it into something that you would otherwise have gone and purchased. And look, we're a startup, we're small. It'll be a slog and it'll be a battle, but I wouldn't have got involved like everything else I've been talking to you about if I didn't passionately believe that those are the answer.

None of us go shopping now without a plastic bag in our hand already or a reusable tote bag or whatever. But none of us think twice before we go and buy a pair of sunglasses. And Coral Eyewear, I want to be the answer. The case there, that's made from plastic.

Oh, this case? Or this case? That one. Oh wow.

Yeah, so that's recycled plastic, the cloth inside recycled plastic. You'd never know, would you?

No, I wouldn't. One of the things that really struck me as well is how high quality it all feels. Like, it feels super luxury, like the case and the—

Well, that's the thing. We also didn't want people to think, "Yeah, I want to help the environment, but I'll have to look a bit rubbish." We actually want people to think, "I can still buy a really nice, high-end, high-quality bit of eyewear." You got the little note there from George?

Yeah, this is great. It says: "Hey there, thank you so much for choosing Coral and our vision to make the eyewear industry kinder to our planet. George." Smiley face. George, that's super nice. Super nice.

Yeah, no, I was—you know, I was nervous because when friends send me things, brand new products, sometimes I don't love it. And I'm known for being really honest with my friends and saying, "Oh, I don't really like this about it" or whatever, because I just think the truth sets you free.

And that's what people really value. As you said earlier, it's like the critique is often more valuable at certain stages than just total praise.

One word you said earlier that has become incredibly important in my mindset these days is the word "consistency." Maybe from meeting exceptional guests, maybe just from understanding the root cause of my own accomplishments. But you know, I used to think that intensity was the answer. But if you look at all of the success that I've had, whether it's getting a million followers on Instagram or Social Chain or whatever, it was that word. And I never really appreciated the importance of that word until recently, I think it was when I was writing my book. What have you learned about consistency?

I've learned exactly as you have, that consistency is the root of all good stuff. Because if you find something that works for you, you have to do it consistently. Like, I used to say "consistently relentless." I regret the use of the word "relentless" a little bit now. I do think you have to be relentless, but I now change it to: you have to be "consistently happily relentless."

And if you can be consistently happily relentless, I don't think you will go far wrong. Because you'll be doing a passion project, which is what makes you happy. You will be consistently doing things and consistency is absolutely key for people to understand what you're about.

And let's be totally frank: we can sit here and be fluffy and friendly and say, "Oh, you know, let's not push people too hard in the modern world because it might cause issues and whatever." You do have to be relentless for success. But it's okay to be relentless if you're being relentless and you're happy being relentless. So try in 2021 to be consistently, happily relentless and let's see where we all are in 12 months' time.

I have one more question for you. It's probably a question people don't really talk about in the podcasting game, but we have struggled at times to get women to come on the podcast. For variety of different reasons, men seem much more willing than women. Have you found the same thing?

Yeah, we have. Yeah, it's interesting you should say that. Yeah, we have. I don't think that we have found women not willing to come on the podcast. I think it's only when you start doing a podcast about relentless high achievement that you realize how dominated by men the tops of our industries are.

That's the problem. And I, you know, we keep on saying, "Right, who shall we get on as really great inspirational female leaders?" And all the suggestions people keep making to us are in the sports space. And I keep saying, "No, not sports women," because we are totally—I am totally plugged into the fact that I want to celebrate brilliant successful females.

You know, I have a daughter, and I want her to listen to this podcast in years to come when she's old enough and go, "That's who I want to be. That's who I want to be inspired by." And I think that sometimes we like to trick ourselves into thinking, "Oh no, we live in a really equal society now. What are you talking about? There's loads of powerful females at the top of businesses."

When you break it down, we are still in a male-dominated society, and it is a good reminder that we need to keep on lifting up female role models and pushing them to the absolute top. And we are, on the High Performance Podcast, we are totally aware of that. And we will continue to do what we can because actually, when we get brilliant female leaders on there—and we just recorded with Jo Malone, who set up the amazing Jo Malone brand, she now runs Jo Loves. We've recorded with Holly Tucker, who was fantastic. Dame Kelly Holmes, who was really inspirational and moving. Steph Houghton is going to be on the series in the not-too-distant future.

We've had brilliant female leaders on our pod, but it is still a challenge compared to the amount of male leaders lining up going, "Yeah, I'll definitely come on there and talk." And there is something else that maybe we need to address in the next 12 months.

Black women at the top of business.

Mate, where are they? Why—what is happening that is not allowing them to shine as they should? And that is one thing—can I just say one thing that really is pissing me off massively at the moment? It's when people talk about the over-representation of Black and mixed-race or female role models in society. And they say, "Oh, everywhere you turn now, that's all this..."

And I drive this home to them all the time. I say, "Listen, you've got this completely wrong. The reason why we now have to promote and push and celebrate and shout about Black men and Black women and women in general and under-represented areas of society is that if you are a little kid growing up in Norwich or Manchester or Birmingham or Los Angeles, you have to see those people there to believe that you can get there as well."

There's no good saying, "Oh yeah, they'll eventually make it through." We have to show them now that you can, no matter who you are, no matter what the color of your skin, no matter what your gender, no matter what your background, no matter how affluent you are. You can get there. And that's why we have to push them to the forefront now to inspire the next generation. Because once they're there, they'll stay there, and it'll be a much better, more equal society for everyone.

We've both got a big responsibility with our platforms.

Yeah, we do. And we should. We absolutely should.

Listen, thank you for your time. I know you're incredibly busy with—always nice to sit down and chat with you. Thanks for lunch!

No, it's always fascinating and I, you know, you're discovering incredible stories through your own podcast, *High Performance*, and it's really powerful to kind of compare notes sometimes with people because, yeah, my—one of the things I've learned from doing the podcast, which I'm sure you have as well, is that the themes that have made people successful and given them that high-performance mindset are actually quite consistent.

I think when I started my podcast, I was expecting to find 50 different ways to become successful, but it all seems to be distillable down to these simple themes like consistency and discipline and passion. And then for me anyway, much of the root cause of that consistency or that obsession or that passion has come from, often in many circumstances, something that might not have gone right on the playground, or some insecurity they had, or something their dad or mum said to them. And that for me is fascinating. But yeah, thank you again for your time.

Pleasure. It just reminds me that we're all on a journey, right? And I said to Harriet when I was coming on here today, I said, "Oh, I'm going back on *Diary of a CEO* with Steven." And she said, "Again? What are you going to talk about? Because you only went on there a few months ago." And you know, when I now sit here and talk to you, I am a different person than the one that you spoke with before I began doing my podcast and before I began my stuff with Coral Eyewear.

Even in the last year, I feel like I'm sitting here as a different person. And I didn't realize that you could learn and change and develop and adapt quite so much, quite so late. So, man, look, Joe Biden—took him till he was 77 till he nailed it as the president, you know? Sometimes you have to wait a long time in life for your dream job or your dream opportunity to come up.

What has changed since we last spoke for you in terms of who you are?

Just a much deeper understanding of how other people operate. I hadn't—I'd spent my life, hadn't I, on my own journey? Me as a presenter, me learning, me setting up a business. What am I going to do? The *High Performance Podcast* was the first time I'd ever sat down and just said, "From the outside, this is what I think you're doing. Can you just explain it, please?" What a growth period it's been for me personally. Absolute unbelievable.

And therapy at the same time, right?

Therapeutic? Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Thank you, man. [Music Outro Begins]

The thing I think about most, especially when I'm on the go but also when I'm sat here in the Diary of a CEO studio, is the Wi-Fi and internet that we have to work with. In fact, anytime I'm filming away from the studio, one of the first things I do when I arrive is open up an app and do a speed test to see how strong the signal is.

And the number of screenshots I've sent to my team about Wi-Fi signals at different locations is actually pretty crazy. It matters that much to me because it's such a competitive advantage to have fast Wi-Fi. Because on any given day, if I'm recording hours and hours of footage with a podcast guest, I then often have to have my team send that across to our London team who then do the edit.

So fast Wi-Fi and internet is not a nice-to-have; it is absolutely business-mission-critical. So, when it came to finding the best provider who could supply internet and Wi-Fi to our new LA studio, which I'm sat in right now, we looked at every single option.

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