Jake Humphrey

What is the High Performance Podcast?

So the High Performance Podcast is, for me, it's more than a podcast. It's a platform, it's a community. It's a world where we basically show that there is no secret to high performance. I think people think that high performance is such a hard thing to achieve. It's this athe mythical thing that you either have to be born in the right place or do the right things, or take these huge leaps of faith to get to high performance. But that's because we think that high performance belongs to other people. We think other people deserve to be successful. Other people deserve to be happy. Other people deserve to have their life figured out. But the truth is, I think all of us deserve that. Certainly, all of us deserve happiness. And actually the truth is that it's within us. And all we do on the High Performance Podcast is speak to leading people around the world. Find out the tips and the tricks from them about how they got to where they got to, and we share it with the audience. And people can ignore some of it. They can listen to some of it, they can agree with some, they can disagree with some, but hopefully it gives them this toolkit to go out into the world and realise that high performance is within high performance is something that they deserve, and it's high performance on their terms. So it's their version of high performance. My version is actually very different to how it used to be. My version is just to be happy to sleep well at night. If I've got those two things, then I know that things are okay. And that is the High Performance Podcast in a nutshell.

Why did you create the High Performance Podcast?

I created the High Performance Podcast because I had an amazing upbringing, a loving family, a really lovely, stable house. But I think the truth is that it wasn't really instilled in us to go and be massively ambitious. And I think my family, and certainly I thought that success or doing amazing things was for other people. I was going to be a local guy in Norfolk where I grew up and I might get a job at a local business and do it for life. And actually, when I failed my A Levels, I went back to school. I ended up through that getting a job in tv, which led to me getting a job in Formula One. And when I walked into the pit lane of my first Formula One race, suddenly I had a chance to say to all these amazing, high achieving people, of which I didn't consider myself one. Like, how did this happen? How did you get here? How are you a billionaire? How are you a Formula One driver? How are you a team principal? How are you a CEO of a massive business? And they all just said, well, I had a normal upbringing like you, but I had a passion. I believed that I deserve to achieve great things. I attacked it like a rotweiler and didn't take no for an answer. And I then wanted to share that with people. I wanted to tell the world that you can be everything that you want to be. It's not for other people, it's for you. And the greatest news of all is that high achieving people have just understood the algorithm. And when you understand the algorithm of success, you can copy it and you can repeat it. Why do you think that the same people create unicorn businesses from zero to a billion valuation? They do it seven times over, and it's not because they know something you don't. They know that. So they just do it again and again and again, and then they get lauded as these amazing business brains. The truth is that there is no secret.

What does 'High Performance' look like to you?

High performance to me looks like serenity. It looks like happiness. It looks like freedom. It looks like confidence. And there was a period where, to me, high performance looked like grafting and working hard and doing more than someone else, and getting kicked in the guts and getting knocked down to my knees and getting up and going again, and dealing with failure and dealing with struggle. But actually, if that's all high performance is, then all you're doing is struggling and getting knocked to your knees and getting slapped across the face and getting punched in the guts. There's no joy there. Whereas to me, high performance is realising that right now, regardless of everything else around me, I can and should be happy, have freedom, be serene, be calm, because I believe that people, including you watching this video right now, are delaying your happiness. You're thinking, well, when I get that job, I'll be happy When I get that promotion, I'll be happy When I get that pay rise, I'll be happy. When I meet a life partner, I'll be happy. When I have a child, I'll be happy. Hey, guess what? It isn't about waiting for that happiness. It's about realising you deserve to be happy. Now, happiness is wanting what you've got. So other things might come your way, great things might happen, but if you just want what you've got, then you will enjoy the moment that you're in. And if you enjoy the moment that you're in, you're more likely to be brilliant in that moment because enjoying it. And if you're going to be brilliant in that moment, then more great things are going to come from it because you've given it your all and you've excelled and you've been incredible. And then lo and behold, those things that you thought were success happen anyway because you're in the moment. You can't be here looking there and expect to get there. You've got to be here looking here, focusing on this. And that may well happen. We've done 150 episodes of the High Performance Podcast, right? And we've distilled high performance down to three sentences. Do the best you can where you are with what you've got. Nobody can ask you to do more than the best you can where you are with what you've got.

Who is the best guest you have had on the podcast?

Have you ever met one of your idols?